Academic Identity And Its Dimensions: From Narratives To Academic Teacher’s Trajectories

Author(s):

Carolina da Costa Santos(presenting / submitting)Fátima Pereira Amélia Lopes

Conference:

ECER 2013

Network:

22. Research in Higher Education

Format:

Poster

Session Information

22 SES 05.5 PS, General Poster Session

General Poster Session

Time:

2013-09-11

12:30-14:00

Room:

FUAYE

Chair:

Contribution

This paper discusses the results of a research on the terms of an educational sciences post-graduation program from the Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences of University of Porto, entitled “Academic identity and its dimensions: from narratives to academic teacher’s trajectories”.

One of this study’s goals is to identify professors’ strategies and therefore articulate the intensification of demands from the academic work with its excellence activities, seeking the understanding of how they’re able to overcome the constraints inflicted by a bigger system for the construction of their professional identity. This work takes place in the middle of a moment in which an impact is realized on the (re)construction of professors’ academic identity, by defying the aspects of the imposed neo-liberal policies (Harris, 2005). With these policies, not only the academic identity changes, as well as the relations of freedom, autonomy and purpose of this profession. The professors, therefore, are required to acquire new skills and abilities in order to build their teaching.

Understanding the university as a space for debate, construction and sharing of knowledge (Derrida, 2001; Readings, 2003;Magalhães, 2004), the study is guided by the voice of professors to comprehend four dimensions of professors' work in higher education (teaching, research, community interaction and academic management) and their articulations in the construction of academic identity. Considering that the identity does not translate itself into isolated aspects, but it is designed from the articulation between different dimensions of the professor, as their original graduation and their previous experiences, for instance, we understand that identity is constructed by multiple identities and the interactions between them (Lopes, 2001). We also understand that it is constituted by merging past, present and future when it comes to experience, current activity and expectations regarding professional occupation. Therefore, we tried to study this academic identity by listening to the voice of the protagonists of the research when they reflect upon their experiences and careers.

The biographical narratives, its outlines and implications also steadies as a fundamental concept, once we acknowledge the teaching profession as a job that involves, above all, human interaction and relationships that imply wills and desires, not being composed of inert subject (Tardif and Lessard, 2005). Thus, the trajectories of professors, once told and resignified present themselves as a possibility to comprehend from a biographical speech a social meaning displayed by subjective trajectories (Dubar, 1998), which allows the construction of knowledge about teaching identity.

Method

A focus group was carried out to listen professors' voice as professionals in practice (Goodson, 1992; Certeau, 1994). Some professors could share specific moments of their career paths, starting from previous experience, going through teaching at university and pointing out moments that they judged decisive, reaching reflection on future expectations regarding work. This Focus Group, as an exploratory study, served as the foundation for the construction of the research guide (flexible) and for defining the most important aspects to be addressed in further biographical interviews of narrative-type to be carried out with four professors from a European university. These interviews are aimed to draw the biographical trajectory of the professor, comprehending that the construction of academic identity meets with the construction of life histories, their identities in the plural and with dimensions of teaching. Clandinin and Connelly (2011) show that narrative crosses past, present and future, personal and social dimensions, and place (temporality, interaction and place).We also rely on Nóvoa (1995), Santos(2000) and Correia (1998) to say that working with narrative represents itself as a way of rejecting a science in search of quantifiable data. Content analysis is the methodological process adopted to read and interpret the narratives.

Expected Outcomes

Initial results allows us to understand that, besides the professors’ personal reasons, such as life trajectory that leads to the professional choice, there are more specific factors of professional practice that delineate academic identity (Leibowitz, et al., 2012). As examples, the four dimensions and their articulations, conditioned by external factors such as the university's own regulations, policies that the universities must adapt. The academic identity is built through the relationship between the dimensions of their work, highlighting teaching and research as the two main sides that shape the figure of this professor. Teaching can be defined as the chief activity of a professor and research is outlined as a distinct activity of higher education. On these grounds, research-teaching nexus (Robertson, 2007; Simons & Elen, 2007) becomes the central axis of analysis, which aims to clarify the relationship between these two aspects regarding external and internal education system demands. We understand that for each teacher the study is interesting as well for it allows to reach Johnson’s idea (1987), (apud Clandinin and Connelly, 1990), about the reframing of the narrative as a possibility to fit body and mind, opening room for reflection and hence to further meanings of training and experience.

References

CLANDININ, Jean e CONNELLY, Michael (1990).Narrative, experience and the study of curriculum. Cambridge Journal of Education: Canada. CLANDININ, Jean e CONNELLY, Michael (2011).Pesquisa Narrativa, Experiência e História em Pesquisa Qualitativa. Uberlândia: EDUFU. CERTEAU, Michel de (1994). A arte de fazer. Petrópolis: Vozes. CORREIA, José Alberto (1998). Para uma Teoria Crítica em Educação. Porto: Porto Editora. DERRIDA, Jacques (2001). Universidade sem condições. Coimbra: Angelus Novus. GOODSON, Ivor F (1995). Dar voz ao professor: as histórias de vida dos professores e o seu desenvolvimento profissional. In: NÓVOA, António (org.). Vidas de Professores. 2ed. Porto: Porto Editora. HARRIS, Suzy. Rethinking academic identities in neo-liberal times.Teaching in HigherEducation. Vol. 10, n. 4, October 2005, pp. 421-433. LEIBOWITZ et al (2012). “It´s been a wonderful life”: accounts of the interplay between structure and agency by “good” university teacher. High Educ. 63:353-365. LOPES, Amélia (2001). Professoras e identidade - um estudo sobre a identidade social de professoras portuguesas. Porto: Asa. MAGALHÃES, (2004) A identidade do ensino superior: política, conhecimento e educação numa época de transição. Braga: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian/Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia/Ministério da Ciência e do Ensino Superior. NÓVOA, António (org.). Vidas de Professores. 2ed. Porto: Porto Editora, 1995. READINGS, Bill(2003). A Universidade em ruínas. Coimbra: editora AngelusNovus. ROBERTSON, Jane. Beyond the ‘research/teaching nexus’: exploring the complexity of academic experience. Studies in Higher Education. Vol. 32, N 5, October 2007, p. 541-556. SANTOS, Boaventura de Souza (2000). A crítica da razão indolente: contra o desperdício da experiência. São Paulo: Cortez. SIMONS, Marteen; ELEN, The ‘research–teaching nexus’ and ‘education through research’: an exploration of ambivalences. Studies in Higher Education. Vol. 32, N 5, October 2007, p. 617-631. TARDIF, Maurice; Lessard, Claude. O trabalho docente: elementos para uma teoria da docência como profissão de interações humanas. Petrópolis: Vozes, 2005.

Author Information

Carolina da Costa Santos (presenting / submitting)

University of Porto

Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences

Porto

Fátima Pereira

University of Porto, Portugal

Amélia Lopes