Women Being and Becoming Academics: Exploring gendered career journeys and their implications for Academic Development

Whilst the literature of academic identity is well represented in the sociology of Higher Education (HE) in the UK, personal narratives of journeys through the process of being and becoming an academic are less present. The potential of narrative methodology to produce different knowledge by producing knowledge differently (St. Pierre, 1997) is used as a conceptual framework to co-construct case stories of the career journeys made by five women academics within a globalised academy in the early 21 century. The study draws on two principal theoretical frameworks to contrast the dynamic relationships between gender, structure and agency and their implications for Academic Development. These are: the critical realist theories of Margaret Archer (1995; 2000; 2003; 2012) and Judith Butler’s work on gender ‘performativity’ (1990; 2005; 2004). In terms of senior roles at policy level the Academy can be seen as a male dominated sphere. My thesis focuses on women’s journeys to foreground the effects of wider social relations and how they impact on women’s academic identities and careers to continually reproduce dominant discourses of a male hegemony and neo-liberal socio-economic climate. The consequential distortions in academic development practices are framed in the light of this knowledge. This contributes knowledge to the literature of Academic Development in Higher Education and has implications for my own professional practice as a Head of Continual Professional Development (CPD) for Teaching and Learning in a pre-92 University. Three broad research questions guided this exploration. 1. What are the experiences of women academics in developing their careers and academic identities? 2. How can case stories of the career choices made by women academics help academic developers understand gender inequalities in higher education? 3. What are the implications of gender equalities in the academy for the practices of Academic Development?