Generational change in the Argentine academic profession through the analysis of ‘life courses’

Abstract

The aim of this article is to analyze the effects of the socio-political processes on the academic profession in Argentina from the life course perspective. The analysis of differences in the individuals' life course was made by dividing them into three groups, representing different generations of academics: the novel, the intermediate, and the consolidated. It is possible to link the way in which those groups have delineated their careers to key historical periods of the country. The assumption of the authors is that each generational group has delineated its academic life course under the performativity of university policies during different socio-political moments, building networks of relationships and life paths through elections, in the context of opportunities and obligations imposed by history and social circumstances. This article draws on research data from two projects: The Changing Academic Profession Project (henceforth CAP), based on a structured questionnaire answered by a probabilistic sampling of Argentine university professors in activity, and a qualitative study based on 80 in-depth interviews to academics on key topics that emerged from CAP study.

A generational divide in the academic profession: A mixed quantitative and qualitative approach to the Polish case

“…Young academics are in their ‘formative years’ and have usually held their PhD degrees for no more than ten years (Teichler, 2006). I have assumed that a contrast between academic cohorts or generations expressed in the four age groups (and between two contrasted academic ranks: ‘full professors’ and ‘new entrants’) may work better in the Polish case than either a general bipartite junior-senior split (as in Teichler and Höhle, 2013) or a number of tripartite splits: a junior/middle rank/professors split (Enders and Teichler, 1997), an early-career/mid-career/late-career split (Shin et al, 2014) or a ‘novel’/ ‘intermediate’/ ‘consolidated’ split (Marquina et al, 2015). ‘New entrants’ are defined here as those granted their PhD degrees in the ten years preceding the execution of the survey, or in 2001–2010; in most cases, they would be in the 29–39 age bracket, and ‘full professors’ are academics holding the ‘presidential’ professorship granted for life, the pinnacle of the profession.…”

Academics’ Societal Engagement in the Humanities and Social Sciences: A Generational Perspective from Argentina, Germany, Portugal, and Sweden

“…Theorizing socialization and academic generations Many researchers have studied social change by looking at and comparing cohorts (Ryder, 1965) or generations (Shaw, 2005). From a life-course perspective (Marquina et al, 2015), generations are defined by specific historical events within a certain trajectory, such as an academic career; such events have specific influences on professional development and identity formation. Accordingly, differences in terms of values, beliefs, and attitudes can be expected to arise between generations of academics due to, for example, the shifting expectations and perceived demands of the HE system and HEIs, which affect the situated socialization of, in particular, junior scholars (Shaw, 2005).…”

“…The socialization of the members of a specific age group is considered the basis for members' understanding of themselves as part of a single generation of academics, with specific routines and a shared understanding of academics' work in research, teaching, and complementary ASE (Austin, 2002;Marquina et al, 2015). According to Shaw (2005), socialization also influences the construction of academic careers as a processual interplay between individual academics and their senior colleagues in specific HEI settings.…”

“…Considering differences in socialization, the context of the Napoleonic model, with its focus on the professional HE of a nation's functional elite (Sam and van der Sijde, 2014), implies closer networks of academics and non-academic partners in Argentina (Marquina et al, 2015) and Portugal (Cabrito, 2004). In contrast, the elite networks of academics and non-academic cooperation partners in the Humboldtian HE systems in Germany (Hartmann 2018) and Sweden (Edling ) can be expected to be more heterogeneous.…”

“…This discourse leveraged higher education (HE), innovation, and science studies (e.g., Arbo and Benneworth, 2007) to promote ideas about research, teaching, knowledge, and technology transfer as central drivers of economic growth and prosperity in the knowledge economy (KE) (e.g., Godin, 2006;Henriques and Larédo, 2013;OECD, 1996). KE policies are also supported by other international organizations (e.g., World Bank, 2002) and have trickled down via both regional (e.g., APEC, 2000;EC, 2005;CEPAL, 1992) and national HE, innovation, and science policies in, for example, Argentina (e.g., Marquina et al, 2015Marquina et al, , 2017, Germany (e.g., Hüther and Krücken, 2018), Portugal (e.g., Carvalho, 2012), and Sweden (e.g., Benner and Sandström, 2000). KE policies and related ideology have also had a significant impact on the governance of higher education institutions (HEIs) (e.g., Geuna and Muscio 2009;Pinheiro et al, 2019).…”