Short-term, short-changed? A temporal perspective on the implications of academic casualisation for teaching in higher education

Leathwood, Carole; Read, Barbara

doi:10.1080/13562517.2020.1742681

Cited by 60 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…In line with the literature on uncertainties (Leathwood -Read 2020, Ivancheva 2019, Bernardi et al, 2008, Blossfeld et al 2005) and the phenomenon of the neoliberal universities (Rosa 2021), labour market and workplace uncertainties crucially affected the WLB of female PhD students in this research. Women experienced the global phenomenon of precarity that has reached the highly prestigious institutions of research and development in Hungary as well.…”

Section: Rq1: Constraining and Facilitating Factorssupporting

confidence: 60%

“…Youths and women are particularly exposed to it due to their unstable socio-economic status, including precarious employment: short fixed-term work contracts and low incomes even in prestigious jobs (Leathwood -Read 2020, Ivancheva et al 2019, European Commission 2012, Bernardi et al 2008. Childbearing decisions under such circumstances are complex, and women, as an adaptive strategy, often delay the milestones of their family formation.…”

Section: Gendered Life Coursesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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PHD and Childbearing? - Work-life Balance of Female PHD Students in the Field of Engineering

Paksi¹

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- The goal of the present research was to explore the work-life balance (WLB) of young female engineers during their PhD studies. Obstacles to WLB in high-status occupations can be magnified in the male-dominated STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields, where women are significantly underrepresented. While women and different societal actors invest significant capitals into women’s education – and also an insufficient supply of high-skilled labour force –, women often are dissuaded from a career in science, particularly after obtaining PhD; not only in the USA and the EU member states but even in the more gender-equal Nordic countries. I propose in this dissertation that young women researchers in STEM fields face severe work-life balance-related obstacles even as early as their PhD education due to the intersection of their gender, age, parental status, nationality, and also the characteristics of their strongly male-dominated, knowledge-intensive occupation, particularly if it involves laboratory work with hazardous substances. - The research is embedded into a dual theoretical framework. While WLB theories help to understand the relationship of school, work and family life, the life course approach highlights how the critical intersection of individual and academic life courses affects WLB, especially the timing of childbearing. The research is based on a qualitative research design; 27 semi-structured interviews were conducted with female PhD students in engineering in Hungary. Two main research questions and three sub-questions were raised: 1) What dilemmas do female PhD engineering students face when trying to create a WLB? 2) Which strategies do female PhD engineering students (want to) apply to achieve WLB? --What main factors do female PhD engineering students identify that constrain and /or facilitate their WLB? -- How do studying and working in engineering influence the WLB of female PhD students? -- How do institutional and normative contexts shape the family plans of female PhD students in engineering, especially their timing of motherhood? - Results show that -- The vast majority of female PhD students in this sample were engaged in multiple roles: education, work, private and family life, which severely challenged their WLB. Their main concerns and dilemmas were when to integrate motherhood into an academic career and how to balance their life. -- PhD students were socialising in the greedy organisations of both the productivity-based neoliberal academia and the private sector. They carried heavy workloads and were further pressured by the knowledge intensity of engineering profession. Women, particularly mothers, were also solely responsible for caring and household tasks at home; therefore, they failed to follow the dominant male engineer career model – long working days without days off, even at the weekends –, which was associated with the image of the “ideal, good researcher” and a successful career. -- Interviewees frequently encountered time- and strain-based work-to-family conflicts: time-squeeze, tiredness, exhaustion, stress, strain, bad mood, insomnia and negative spillovers. They sought support from their families but lacked well-developed coping strategies. They rather used different practices to facilitate their WLB with greater or lesser success: adequate scheduling, segmentation of life domains, and communication of the boundaries between work and private life. Flexible working arrangements seemed to be a double-edged sword: it enhanced and hindered their WLB at the same time. -- The vast majority of the PhD students perceived different labour market-based uncertainties – extremely short fixed-term contracts, low income and gender-based discrimination, particularly that of mothers –, which resulted in an imbalance of work and family life. -- The inflexibility and health hazards of laboratory work particularly hindered the timing of childbearing during their academic career. -- Engineer women reported a bunch of negative experiences from their male-dominated learning and working environments that hindered their WLB and family plans: the masculine view of science, devaluation of their knowledge, unfair and humiliating treatment, isolation. Assimilation strategy was more often applied than those of humour and sensitisation. -- These women more than once delayed motherhood. Their most significant dilemma was based on the tension between the defining social norms, their biological clock and the perceived feasibility of their family plans. Women could not call any ideal period for childbearing in their profession; therefore, they named the period of dissertation writing the “least bad option”. - Research findings highlight the Hungarian case, nuance international research findings and offer intervention points to stakeholders. Results can enhance the WLB of young researchers and may contribute to the elimination of barriers to women’s professional advancement and to the increase of the proportion of women in STEM fields.

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Section: Rq1: Constraining and Facilitating Factorssupporting

confidence: 60%

Section: Gendered Life Coursesmentioning

confidence: 99%

PHD and Childbearing? - Work-life Balance of Female PHD Students in the Field of Engineering

Paksi¹

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“…However, Maryam also explores how those in junior or insecure positions are less likely to push pedagogic boundaries. This is supported by Leathwood and Read (2020) who researched the pedagogic decision-making of academics on casualised contracts and found that this produced short-term temporal logics that had negative impacts on inculcating critical pedagogies as opposed to more instrumental, outputdriven teaching. While Prevent may present itself as a neutral technology to understand and challenge radicalisation, as an entangled apparatus, it materialises itself in bodies differently and is shaped by who feels 'at home' (Ahmed, 2012) in higher education institutions, disciplines and classrooms.…”

Section: Tanisha Southern Citymentioning

confidence: 92%

Prevent/Ing critical thinking? The pedagogical impacts of Prevent in UK higher education

Danvers

2021

Teaching in Higher Education

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“…My position as a feminist scholar committed to social justice in the current climate creates additional layers of uncertainty and concerns about backlash (Ringrose 2018). Challenging working conditions and fear of job loss constrains what is possible in terms of innovation, critique and boundary pushing (Leathwood and Read 2020;Morris et al forthcoming). Nevertheless, I concur with Burke and Carolissen (2018), that educators hold responsibilities to identify pedagogical strategies which enable moments of resistance in this context.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Working with critical reflective pedagogies at a moment of post-truth populist authoritarianism

Morris

2021

Teaching in Higher Education

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This paper considers critical reflection as a pedagogical strategy in UK higher education at a moment of an amplification of populist, reactionary discourses. It draws on written reflections of foundation-level students in a case study cohort and offers insights into their lived learning experiences and perceptions of the value of reflection. This is situated within the UK 'Brexit' context, alongside a proliferation of far-right populist voices, emboldened supremacies and rising fascism. Accompanying this has been a normalisation of reactionary 'anti-social justice' discourses. It is vital that HE practitioners recognise, pre-empt and interrupt such discourses, developing pedagogies and curricula in response. Yet there are inherent challenges in a climate of 'post-truth' antiintellectualism. This paper argues that critical reflection contributes a useful approach to learning, fostering development of students' personal, intellectual and political capacities to navigate this complex socio-political terrain and engage with social justice.

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Short-term, short-changed? A temporal perspective on the implications of academic casualisation for teaching in higher education

Cited by 60 publications

References 36 publications

PHD and Childbearing? - Work-life Balance of Female PHD Students in the Field of Engineering

PHD and Childbearing? - Work-life Balance of Female PHD Students in the Field of Engineering

Prevent/Ing critical thinking? The pedagogical impacts of Prevent in UK higher education

Working with critical reflective pedagogies at a moment of post-truth populist authoritarianism

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