Publishing in the academy: An arts-based, metaphorical reflection towards self-care

Abstract

Publishing in the academy is a high-stakes activity often used to measure academic staff progress and inform promotion. Many universities have increased pressure on academics, even at the earliest stages of their careers, to publish in high-ranking journals resulting in increased stress and uncertainty. The authors of this paper are members of a writing group in an Australian regional university, established to support each other towards success in quality research and publishing. Over the 2020–2021 summer semester, six members of the group decided to reflect on their experiences, emotions and outcomes throughout the writing process by participating in four reflective arts-based activities. Theoretical frameworks of reflection and metaphor were used to share findings. Strong evidence of having to grapple with meeting university expectations in tension with personal goals and passions was ever-present. The importance of drawing on both personal resources and significant others to manage these tensions through self-care practices was also evident. Implications resulting from this research include recognising the pressures placed on academics to publish only in specifically ranked journals. Overall, the arts-based reflection was critical in uncovering deeper feelings about the pressures of publishing and supporting higher education employees’ well-being and self-care during the writing process.

Enablers and constraints to teacher educator wellbeing amidst institutional accountability cultures: a PERMA perspective

“…In the context of our study and building on their previous work in the field of TE wellbeing (Barton et al, 2022;Turner & Garvis, 2023), the authors apply Seligman's (2012) conceptualisation of wellbeing which is defined as a multifaceted construct including the elements of Positive emotion, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning, and Accomplishment, also referred to as PERMA. The PERMA wellbeing framework was deemed the most appropriate for this study as it has been previously applied in studies of wellbeing in higher educational settings (see for example: Gupta et al, 2022;Inigo & Raufaste, 2019), though not specifically teacher education.…”

“…This has also been recognised in other countries such as China (Yang et al, 2021) and Jordan (Al-Jarrah & Al-Rabee, 2020). The teacher educators in this study counted these opportunities as few and far between, with excessive workload constraining the extent to which such opportunities were available to them (Barton et al, 2022). As Taylor suggested, If you actually looked at people's workloads and worked out how many people are over workload…if you added up all of the additional workloads they're doing... would be interesting.…”

“…Nic went further to suggest that a sense of achievement in teacher education came from, 'Just having a more realistic plan, sitting down every morning going, what can I achieve today?… When I've achieved that, my day is done'. While other studies have foregrounded teacher educators' challenges to feel that they can achieve in this performative context, most specifically in their research lives (Barton et al, 2022;Larsen & Brandenburg, 2021), these teachers educators sought to try and retain realistic expectations of themselves.…”