Our research examines how academics make sense of their teaching work in the middle of the changes of the academy. While a vast literature exists on academic work and academics more generally, research on teaching work continues to lag some way behind.

University education and teaching are nowadays tightly positioned in the transnational political agenda; the demands to the future highly educated employee and citizen are numerous. The Bologna process reflects this clearly: Higher education should give students the advanced knowledge, skills and competences they need in a changing labour market and empower them to become active and responsible citizens capable of promoting the cultural and social development of our societies. At the same time in the environment of hard competition of the resources, universities have to profile themselves ever clearly and they have to focus on their operations more strategically than before.

The nature of university teaching will change if teaching and learning will reflect the ideology of a market-oriented and utilitarian perspective. The perception of higher education as a commodity changes conceptions of organizational culture, primary tasks of universities and the ways how education should be offered. (Blackmore 2009, pp. 866–867.) So, it could be argued that teaching work has “politicized” in a new extend along with adopting the new technology of governance such as audits, evaluation and quality assurance (ENQVA), standardization (ECTS) and comparisons (cf. AHELO). 

Joëlle Fanghanel uses the terms “managed academic” or “managed professionals” to capture the impact of the forms of management put in place in universities over the past three decades to manage performance and practices. Specific instantiations of managerialism have generated cultures and practices in the university that are underpinned by market-like principles, based on measurement, control and display of performance. This has resulted in academics getting a strong sense of being managed. (Fanghanel 2012, pp. 15–16).

Neoliberal transnational higher education policy doctrines have been systematically followed in Finland, too.  Since the 1960s Finnish university policy has taken steps from the Social Democratic Nordic 'state development university doctrine', through more liberal 'managing by results and competition doctrine' to the 'neoliberal NPM doctrine'. The new University Act in 2009 was a culmination of the new higher policy guided by ‘neoliberal NPM doctrine’. The ‘managing by results and competition' doctrine and ‘neoliberal NPM doctrine’ have entailed market-orientation, expectations of immediate economic gain and assessment and evaluation mechanisms and other managerial practices. (Rinne, Jauhiainen & Kankaanpää 2014.)

Taking a narrative approach our research investigates how academics in the Finnish context make sense of their teaching work as managed in the middle of the changes of the academy. We ask what kinds of possibilities, resources, limits and problems the managerial  principles and practices set at teaching. We focus on the diversity of storylines reflecting the ways being a teacher in the academy.  The theoretical framework of the research draws from sociocultural research traditions. We are looking at individuals in the political, cultural and institutional – that is sociocultural – contexts. This means that teaching as academic work is constructed and defined at the same from ´inside` and ´outside´.

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