Research Seminar: Teaching specialist positions: creating elite teachers or an academic under-class in Australia’s research-intensive universities?

Teaching specialist positions: creating elite teachers or an academic under-class in Australia’s research-intensive universities? 

Abstract: Teaching-specialist positions have become increasingly prevalent in the Australian academic workforces from the beginning of the 21st century. These positions represented a worldwide trend towards the “fragmentation” (Clark, 1987), “unbundling”, (Macfarlane, 2011); Baird, 2013) “segmentation” and “specialisation” of academic work (Roberts & Peters, 2008; Connell & Dados, 2013; Mangeol, 2014; Fitzsimons, 2015; Ingleby, 2015). This webinar presents research that used narrative and thematic history approaches based on publicly available documentary resources to examine the commitment to teaching quality in Australia’s publicly funded research-intensive universities (Go8). Critical analysis focused on globalisation, neoliberalism, New Public Management, and Australian Government higher education policy. Teaching-specialist positions comprised workloads between 60% - 100% of teaching and teaching-related duties. Go8 universities claimed that they offered opportunities for scholarship and leadership, which suggested that they were of equal value and reward to teaching-research roles. This research sought to assess why Go8 universities adopted teaching specialist positions and whether they delivered the benefits that were claimed.

To find out more about Dr Hayford, follow this link: https://researchers.adelaide.edu.au/profile/julie.hayford