Transcript EdD Module on Professionalism Some Perspectives on

SRHE Access & Widening
Participation Event
Professional Practices and
Identities
Working in a Third Space
Dr Celia Whitchurch
Centre for Higher
Education Studies
Contexts
• Blurring of academic/’non-academic’ binary
• Professional staff gaining academic credentials
(qualifications and experience)
• Academic staff undertaking more project
oriented work eg around widening participation
• Partnership and team working
• Areas such as widening participation working
out where they sit institutionally and their
relationships, individually and collectively
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Case Material
•Two LFHE funded studies 2005-2009
•9 institutions; 70 respondents; UK, US, Australia
•42/64 respondents in professional roles with
significant academic elements (mainly nonacademic or split contracts)
•Mixed career backgrounds eg adult and
continuing education, academic literacy, policy
research, regional development, third sector
•Widening participation recurred as a broadly
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based project area
Locating Widening
Participation
•1980s expansion – access policies
•Initially established as adjunct to admissions
•Now crosses eg recruitment, equity and
diversity, learning partnerships, outreach,
ambassador programmes, employability,
academic literacy, teaching and learning
•Some incorporated as part of Widening
Participation offices, others contiguous
•WP crosses external as well as internal
boundaries
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The Emergence of Third
Space
‘Perimeter’
Professional staff roles eg
Generalist
functions
eg registry,
department/
school
management
Specialist
functions
eg finance,
human
resources
Access
Preparatory/
study skills
Regional
‘Niche’ functions partnership
eg quality,
research
management
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From
Whitchurch (2008)
Examples of institutional projects
in Third Space
The Student Experience eg:
Life and welfare
Widening participation
Employability/careers
Equity and diversity
Outreach
Learning Support eg:
Programme
design/development
Web-based learning
Academic literacy
Community/Business
Partnership eg:
Regional regeneration
Business enterprise
Incubation and spin out
Knowledge transfer
Employer engagement
Mixed teams
“The Higher Education
Professional”
‘Perimeter’
roles eg
Pastoral
support
Teaching for
non-traditional
students
Links with local
education
providers
Academic staff
Teaching
Research
‘Third leg’ eg
public service,
enterprise
Preference for projectoriented roles
•People who could have gone ‘either way’
•Doctoral programmes provide platform for
professional as well as academic roles…
•Also mid-career changes arising from eg:
•Ideological commitment to project
•Functional or disciplinary area no longer interesting
•Prefer team working
•Prefer applied research eg factors affecting student
progress and outcomes
•Pragmatic reason eg route into higher education,
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career
or funding opportunity, job in specific location
Example: Learning
Partnerships Manager I
•Job description required: “…academic credibility
to ensure that innovative and complex operations
are delivered with high standards and quality…
experience of generating external income and
involvement in project management” and
•“… commitment to generating, recognising and
imaginatively meeting demand for higher
education in such a way as to address the needs
of students and generate growth for the
university… A major aim… is to create new
synergies
and cross team working”
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Example: Learning
Partnerships Manager II
•“I’ve always worked at interfaces…I’ve never been
mainstream… although I will use it and occasionally
say ‘well of course we’re just marginalised’, that’s
where I like to be. I like to be where it doesn’t matter
if you can bend the rules…it’s part of what makes
life interesting… the battles that go on and the
fighting over contested areas, I find that quite
stimulating…”
•“… there is quite a lot of contested space that we
are working out... So the identity of the section … is
it an income generator, or should it be a service
provider;
or can it occupy a hybrid space?”
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Third Space as a concept
•Concept from sociology/cultural theory:
– “A dynamic, in-between space” in which “cultural
translation” takes place (Bhabha 1990)
– Activity not constrained by unitary set of “rules and
resources”(Giddens 1991) from one or other
space
– “a difficult and risky place on the edge, inbetween, filled with contractions and ambiguities,
with perils but also with new possibilities …
containing more than simple combinations of the
original dualities’ (Soja and Hooper, 1993)
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Spaces I
•A plural environment with ambiguous
conditions:
–“Sometimes an academic unit, sometimes
an office” (learning partnerships manager)
–Turning this to advantage…
–Not associated with specific agendas
•Often support from eg senior mentor
•Safe space in which to be creative/experiment
BUT
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Spaces II
• Lack of organisational checks and balances
(the ‘dark side’)
• More self-reliance and struggle
• Sometimes working with given structures for
practical purposes, but also critiquing them
•Sense of being ‘under the radar’
•Reflected in perceptions of “invisible
workforces” (Rhoades 2010) and “secret
managers” (Kehm 2006)
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Example of dissonance in
Third Space
“A lot of the activities I undertake have an academic
component to them, and I think people find that
difficult because I’m not an academic… the notion
that you can encompass academic activities within
an administrative set up is very uncomfortable for a
lot of people… Why are we [running programmes]
when we’ve got no full-time academic staff within the
department, and where is the quality control, even
though we go through institutional processes like
everyone else. It makes people uneasy I think”
(learning
partnerships manager)
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Knowledges I
•Applied, evidence–based (Mode 2)
institutional knowledge eg practice-based
research
•Transforming information into knowledge:
“I know what’s important to the institution; I
know where it needs to be positioning itself; I
know what the external context is; I know
where we sit in terms of government agendas
and stuff like that…”(learning partnerships
manager)
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Knowledges II
•Awareness of impact of knowledge on
different audiences
•“I sometimes feel like an arms dealer… I
have an obligation to provide data … in an
objective way; but … the data can be
viewed through multiple lenses”
(institutional researcher)
•Contribution to academic field of higher
education (eg conferences, publications)
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Relationships I
•“…if you get the relationships right everything
else falls into place” (educational technologist)
•Lateral team working across hierarchies
•At earlier stage of careers
•May lead in one setting, be led in another
•‘Partnership’ rather than ‘management’
•Internal and external networks (‘weak ties’
Granovetter 1974; Florida 2002)
•Building social and professional capital
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Relationships II
•Dissonance between perceptions of
individuals and the collective:
“… learning partnerships as an entity is
probably seen with suspicion by a lot of the
academic body and people aren’t really sure
what its purpose is and what it’s for. But there
are a very large number of academics who
will have interacted with [us] over particular
projects or with particular individuals and will
hold that in very high regard…” (learning
partnerships manager)
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Legitimacies I
•Credibility via non-positional authority:
“It’s what you are, not what you represent”
(learning partnerships manager);
“There’s no authority that you come with”
(planning manager)
•Confidence to participate in disinterested debate
“learning to divorce argument from people”
(teaching and learning manager)
•Being non-partisan but politically aware:
“I’m trying to represent both sides to both
sides…” (teaching and learning manager)
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Legitimacies II
•Ability to take the part of others
•Awareness of:
–Different academic/professional work “rhythms”
–Some project activity seen as “trade” or “dirty”
work
–Attitude of academic colleagues that “If you
solve a problem for us, we’ll come back and
work with you again” (teaching and learning
manager)
–The fact that academic and professional staff
each perceive the other as being more
18powerful
Practical challenges
• Managing mixed teams: “… there is a difficult
leadership role in integrating and managing
the staff in the unit who are a combined group
of academic and administrative staff
undertaking similar work with different working
conditions and entitlements” (academic
practice manager)
• Status of Third Space activity eg in promotion,
career?
• Possibility of movement back into mainstream
space?
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Paradoxes and dilemmas
•‘Safe’ and ‘risky’ space
•Academic credentials but ‘non-academic’
•Different academic/professional ‘rhythms’
•Neutral positioning but politically aware
•People-oriented but diffident about managing
•Differential perceptions of power
•Networks cross-cutting formal hierarchies
•Recognised by those within, but not those outside
•Can Third Space become ‘mainstream’?...
‘Authenticity’
arises from ability to handle all this?
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