Practising professionally involves, among other things, practical deliberation about what to do under a current set of circumstances, arriving at a moral judgement about what it is best to do, and then practising accordingly. For university educators, this implies not only caring about the consequences of educational practice, but also contextual awareness – understanding the immediate and broader circumstances within which educators practise in their everyday work with students, colleagues, and communities – and having a capacity to act in accordance with what is perceived to be the best course of action under those circumstances. During the recent coronavirus pandemic, many university educators’ contexts and practices across the globe changed dramatically due to university-wide shifts to online-learning and working-from-home arrangements. University educators were compelled to establish new ways of working in their endeavours to do what was ‘best’, in many cases, initially at least, without adequate skills and resources to make effective, timely adjustments. It is not surprising that stories now abound in higher education research literature of the many challenges university educators faced as they came to terms with the changed conditions and modified practices, but questions remain about what this period of dramatic change and challenge has meant for university educator professionalism.

Arguably, university educator responses to changed university teaching and learning arrangements included not only changes to their practices but also changes to their (sense of) professionalism: (a) changes in their ideas and understandings about what doing a good job in university teaching and learning means, (b) changes in the ways professionalism is (or should be) realised in their everyday work practices, and (c) changes in the ways professionalism is (or should be) expressed in appropriate relationships between teachers and learners (and others) in higher education. Drawing on findings from a cross-national study of academic practices and professional learning during the coronavirus pandemic, this presentation will explore the extent to which university educators’ responses to the pandemic have produced such changes. In the presentation, we will share empirical examples of how educators across a diverse range of sites were able to find interesting and novel ways to negotiate and overcome constraints and, in so doing, practise professionally, but differently, amidst and despite challenging times. Our aim is to provide inspiration and food for thought and future research about the construction and enactment of professionalism in academic work amidst changing and challenging conditions.

We use the theory of practice architectures (Kemmis et al., 2014) to describe and analyse changes in the practices of teachers (that is, changes in their sayings, doings, and relatings held together in the projects of their practices) – especially in interaction with students  and in the practice architectures (combinations of cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political arrangements), which are the conditions of possibility that constrain and enable their practices. We use the notions of praxis(Kemmis & Smith, 2008)and praxis stance(Edwards-Groves & Gray, 2008)to explore ways in which the sayings, doings, and relatings of the educators align with professionalism in the sense described above. More specifically, we draw on two connected understandings of praxis: (1) a neo-Aristotelian view of praxis as a commitment to acting for the best for people and for humankind (Kemmis, 2012), and (2) a Marxian view of praxis as history-making action, or acting with regard to the consequences of action (Mahon et al., 2020).

Empirical material was collected from university educators in Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Australia, allowing us to explore a range of contexts, as well as to discern cross-national themes. The primary sources of empirical material were semi-structured interviews in all four countries, and, with the exception of Sweden, journal writing of the participating academics. In the case of Australia, Norway, and Finland, most research participants were interviewed twice, once in the early weeks of the pandemic, and again towards the end of the first year of the pandemic, to see if perceptions, experiences, and practices had changed over time. Participants were either academics working in our own institutions, or belonging to our networks. The number of participants in each country is as follows: Norway – 16, Finland -5, Sweden – 8, and Australia – 14. Interviews and journal entries were analysed using thematic analysis informed by the theory of practice architectures and notions of praxis. This involved processes of independently coding the transcripts (and journals where applicable) from the research investigators’ respective national contexts, and regular discussions amongst the investigators to share findings and identify common and divergent themes across the contexts.

Analysis has highlighted that the ways in which educators embodied professionalism during the pandemic are as diverse as the circumstances in which the educators found themselves, and, not surprisingly, no two stories were the same. Despite this, it was possible to find some common threads across the participants’ experiences and stories of how their practices were affected and changed during the pandemic. All of the participants indicated a desire to do what was best under the circumstances they faced, and many, to that end, made moves to •understand the altered pedagogical and academic landscape, the people and evolving practices within that landscape, and how others (especially students) were being affected by what was transpiring, so that they could make informed judgements about what was best; •be responsive and respond appropriately to the people, arrangements, and circumstances they were encountering; •turn constraints into conditions of possibility for learning, including their own learning. In the presentation, we highlight some of the concrete and diverse ways in which educators managed to accomplish these feats in their practice, and consider not only how views and enactment of professionalism have been both limited and expanded by the changed conditions, but also what professionalism can look like in practices of hybrid learning and remote teaching arrangements that have now become endemic in contemporary higher education. The findings have implications for theory, policy, and practice for university educators and higher education researchers, as well as for scholars engaging with notions related to professionalism and praxis in educational contexts.

Edwards-Groves, C., & Gray, D. (2008). Developing praxis and reflective practice in pre-service teacher education: Affordances and constraints reported by prospective teachers. In S. Kemmis & T. J. Smith (Eds.), Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 85-107). Rotterdam: Sense. Kemmis, S. (2012). Phronesis, experience and the primacy of practice. In E. A. Kinsella & A. Pitman (Eds.), Phronesis as professional knowledge: Practical wisdom in the professions (pp. 147-161). Rotterdam: Sense. Kemmis, S., & Smith, T. (2008). Praxis and praxis development. In S. Kemmis & T. Smith (Eds.), Enabling praxis: Challenges for education (pp. 3–13). Rotterdam: Sense. Kemmis, S., Wilkinson, J., Edwards-Groves, C., Hardy, I., Grootenboer, P., & Bristol, L. (2014). Changing practices, changing education. Singapore: Springer. Mahon, K., Heikkinen, H, Huttunen, R., Boyle, T., & Sjølie, E. (2020). What is educational praxis? In K. Mahon, C. Edwards-Groves, S. Francisco, M. Kaukko, S. Kemmis, & K. Petrie (Eds.), Pedagogy, education, and praxis in critical times (pp. 15-38). Singapore: Springer.