Academic identities research: mapping the field's theoretical frameworks

• Published in: Higher education research and development Vol. 41; no. 2; pp. 240 - 253
• Main Authors: Barrow, Mark, Grant, Barbara, Xu, Linlin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Routledge 23.02.2022
• Subjects: Academic Freedom; Academic identities; College Faculty; Constructivism (Learning); Critical Theory; Educational Research; Educational Theories; faculty identities; Feminism; identity theories; Professional Identity; Scholarship; Social Theories; theoretical frameworks
• ISSN: 0729-4360; 1469-8366
• DOI: 10.1080/07294360.2020.1849036

For several decades, Western universities have been subject to wide-ranging structural, financial and ideological changes. These changes have problematised afresh the meaning of academic identity as evidenced by the emergence of a substantial, international, anglophone research literature. This article examines how the idea of academic identity has been theorised to date in a set of highly cited research literature, with the ambition of providing some points of departure for further work in the area. Our analysis of 11 works suggests a small set of related (constructivist) theories provides the core resources for academic identities scholarship, although somewhat varied understandings of agency and power/politics surface in the discussions and implications advanced by different authors. As a result of this analysis, we suggest the need to extend the theoretical and empirical scope of academic identity research if we are to produce new insights and ways forward.