Whitchurch, Celia (2008) Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 30 (4). pp. 375-386. ISSN 1360-080X
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Abstract
This paper describes an empirical study associated with earlier reviews of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education (Whitchurch, 2004; 2006a; 2006b). The study draws on the narratives of twenty-four individuals to illustrate that identity movements cannot be captured solely in terms of a shift from ‘administration’ to ‘management’, or of a collective process of professionalisation. Contemporary ideas about the fluidity of identity (Delanty, 2008; Taylor, 2008) are used to theorise the empirical data, and to develop a conceptual framework that describes emerging identities by means of three categories of bounded, cross-boundary, and unbounded professionals. This framework demonstrates that professional staff are not only interpreting their given roles more actively, but that they are also moving laterally across functional and institutional boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledges, relationships and legitimacies. It is suggested, therefore, that the roles and identities of professional staff are more complex and dynamic than organisation charts or job descriptions might suggest.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Additional Information: | This is an electronic version of an article published in Whitchurch, Celia (2008) Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 30 (4). pp. 375-386. ournal of Higher Education Policy and Management is available online at:http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/13600800802383042 |
| Subjects: | Departments > Lifelong and Comparative Education |
| Depositing User: | IOE Repository Editor (2) |
| Date Deposited: | 19 Mar 2010 11:32 |
| Last Modified: | 26 Jun 2012 22:28 |
| URI: | http://eprints.ioe.ac.uk/id/eprint/2033 |
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