Neoliberal Governmentality and Performativity Culture in Higher Education: Reflections on Academic Identity

Abstract

Article InfoThis qualitative study aims to explore how the culture of performativity resulting from the influences of neoliberal governmentality on the academe is perceived by academics throughout their career and interrogates how their perceptions could reflect on their professional identity. The study was conducted with twenty-four academics from state universities in Turkey. The analysis of the in-depth interviews revealed that the emerging culture of performativity in higher education institutions seems to establish three identity trajectories as perceived by academics. Accordingly, some resist to conforming to the neoliberal norms in the academe, some feel obliged to conform to these norms albeit with ethical dilemmas while some welcome and embrace these emerging norms. The findings highlight some threatening consequences of performativity as a neoliberal policy tool in higher education for both the soul of the academic profession and the quality of work in the context of Turkey. Implications are identified, which include the need to develop new policy tools prioritizing professional integrity and internal accountability to achieve desired quality in higher education.

Exploring academics’ identities in today’s universities: a systematic review

“…The objectives of the studies included in our review can be summarised into two main groups. Firstly, the general objective of most of the studies is to analyse the influence of new management demands (evaluations and metrics) on the processes of constructing and developing professional academic identities (Gaus and Hall, 2015;Guzm an-Valenzuela and Barnett, 2013;Guzm an-Valenzuela and Martínez, 2016;Huang and Guo, 2019;Huang, Pang, Yu, 2016;Jiménez, 2019;McCune, 2019;Saura and Bolívar, 2019;Shams, 2019;Tülübass and Göktürk, 2020;Ylijoki and Ursin, 2013). However, although the main element examined is the influence of metrics and evaluations on the QAE 30,1 performance of academics, some studies also aimed to analyse other political technologies such as the rapid digitalisation of higher education (Collins et al, 2020;Saura and Bolívar, 2019).…”

“…In general, this identity is characterised by a loss of the sense of traditional academic being. For Tülübass and Göktürk (2020), this is due to the stress generated as a result of the collision between the opposing values of the new and the traditional university.…”

“…Therefore, this type of PI is noted for placing the traditional values of academia before new performative demands. This PI is given multiple names, such as Resilient or Spectator PI (Ylijoki and Ursin, 2013;Ylijoki, 2014), PI Mode I (Leisyte, 2015), Careless Outsider PI (Huang et al, 2016), franchise PI (Jiménez, 2019) or Ethical and Aesthetic Project PI (Tülübass and Göktürk, 2020).…”

“…This kind of PI is typical of academics who either belong to scientific disciplines that are highly valued in the world of publication, who are part of governing bodies or who have been directly involved in the processes of contextual change (Huang et al, 2016). In the scientific literature, a variety of terms are used to describe this type of PI, including PI of success (Ylijoki and Ursin, 2013); Mode IV or Hybrid PI (Leisyte, 2015); Catch-up PI (Huang and Guo, 2019) or PI of Calculating Entrepreneur (Tülübass and Göktürk, 2020). In this group, there is also another type of PI that is characterised by a great capacity to adapt to any requirement or situation, with the simple aim of obtaining benefits.…”

“…As a consequence, this identity is often associated with significant workloads, high levels of stress and both cognitive and emotional burnout (McCune, 2019). This PI has been given multiple names in scientific articles, including PI agency of change (Ylijoki and Ursin, 2013), own path PI (Huang and Guo, 2019) unfinished PI (Jiménez, 2019) or PI of Ethical Dilemma (Tülübass and Göktürk, 2020).…”