In this paper we suggest that the concept of formation is a useful resource for understanding how ADs are ‘shaped’ by their experiences, as well as how their attitudes and values may change over time. As a background we describe how the concept of formation has been understood in different areas of higher education, including professional education (Foster et al, 2006; Colby & Sullivan 2008; Benner et al, 2010; Sutphen & de Lange, 2015) . Higher education is in many respects situated in a tension between being a public or a private good. This is both a question of how higher education shall be financed (cf. Hebel 2014) and a question of whose interests higher education shall satisfy (cf. Labaree 1997). The general trend during the last decades can be described in terms of a successive move from higher education as a public good, a good that serves all in the long run, to higher education as a private good, a good that is more and more adjusted to individual benefits and marketing. All professionals within universities are caught in this field of force between public and private good when executing their tasks. In the tradition of looking at higher education as a public good certain democratic values are stressed, values that underpin the political autonomous citizen and a society that promotes each person’s human dignity executed by professionals pursuing their professional responsibility (Sugrue & Solbrekke 2007). What might be an optimal way to pursue one’s role and responsibility as an academic developer? We will, in light of recent developments within theories of democracy and education, propose and test the idea of deliberative communication (Englund 2006, Kandlbinder 2007) as a procedural way in the formation of academic developers. Deliberative communication (Englund, 2006) stands for communication in which different opinions and values can be set against each other and evaluated, like for example the tension between public and private good in education. This implies an endeavour by each individual to develop his or her view and judgmental ability by listening, deliberating, seeking arguments and valuing, coupled to a collective and cooperative endeavour to find values and norms which everyone can accept, at the same time as pluralism is acknowledged.

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