Loughborough University
Browse

Understanding social constructions of becoming an academic through women’s collective career narratives

Download (300.9 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2020-12-14, 13:59 authored by Sarah BarnardSarah Barnard, Anthea RoseAnthea Rose, Andrew Dainty, Tarek HassanTarek Hassan
The transition of early career researchers into academic posts is understood to be a crucial career step and marks a point at which representation of women declines significantly. The research adopts a participatory qualitative research methodology through career narrative interviews and group discussions with women engineers recently appointed into academic posts. It was found that academic careers are ‘hoped for’, but not described as a straightforward option in terms of either securing tenure or future career development. The collective career paths outlined were rarely linear and featured key moments of crisis and self-doubt, culminating in ‘tentative’ career identity formation in the face of gendered career structures. There is evidence of a pre-emptive and continuing uncertainty about the feasibility of an academic career that begins years before embarking on a PhD. The distinctive contribution of the study is the consideration of gendered early processes of forming an academic identity and ongoing collective experiences of becoming an academic.

History

School

  • Business and Economics
  • Architecture, Building and Civil Engineering

Department

  • Business

Published in

Journal of Further and Higher Education

Volume

45

Issue

10

Pages

1342-1355

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Version

  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

Rights holder

© UCU

Publisher statement

This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Further and Higher Education on 07 Jan 2021, available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/0309877X.2020.1865523

Acceptance date

2020-12-11

Publication date

2021-01-07

Copyright date

2021

ISSN

0013-1326

eISSN

1469-9486

Language

  • en

Depositor

Dr Sarah Barnard. Deposit date: 14 December 2020

Usage metrics

    Loughborough Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC