| 11. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Assembling lines in research education : Challenges, choices and resistance among Swedish doctoral students
- 2019
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Ingår i: Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education. - : Emerald Group Publishing Limited. - 2398-4686 .- 2398-4694. ; 10:2, s. 142-154
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Purpose – The higher education sector in Sweden has, over decades, faced increasing demands in terms of efficiency rates in research, as well as increasing demands in the international competition for external revenue. These demands have influenced academic career trajectories and postdoctoral tracks as well as the everyday work of doctoral students. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how doctoral students express and challenge subjectivity in the present context of research education.Design/methodology/approach – The authors depart from the overall understanding that doctoral students’ lines of actions in research education depend on and form assemblages and, thus, define an academic institution. By re-analysing eight in-depth interviews, they illustrate how doctoral students from different milieus not only comply but also challenge, use border-crossings and change directions in research education.Findings – The results show that some of these doctoral students try to act as loyal and satisfied, especially in regard to their supervisors, whereas others use coping strategies and resistance. It is illustrated that when some of the students use “unsecure” molecular lines, they appear more open to redefining possibilities and change, in comparison with those on more stable molar lines. Those acting on molar lines sometimes express a lack of emotional (productive) engagement, even though this particular group tend to more often get access to rewarded assemblages. These patterns are partly gender-related.Social implications – The tension between finding more stable lines and spaces for change is apparent in doctoral students’ subjectivity, but also how this tension is related to gender. The women doctoral students appear not only more mobile but also in a sense more alert than their men peers. This offers insights in how actions define and redefine not only academic institutions but also different subjectivities.Originality/value – In the present, given the manifold demands on academic institutions, new insights and methodological approaches are necessary to illustrate how contemporary changes affect research education and the everyday life of doctoral students.
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| 12. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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Becoming an academic researcher : The productive body of academia
- 2013
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Ingår i: ECER Conference program: Creativity and Innovation in Educational Research.
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- What subjectivities are allowed in Academia? As others, we argue that the neo-liberal restructuring process of higher education has given certain discourses and subjectivities legitimacy. We analyze how this process has affected the conditions of making subjectivities, e.g. becoming different, how academics move and try to be productive. From our point of view nomadology (Braidotti, 1994, 2002 a, Deleuze & Guattari, 2004) may be an interesting teoretical departure in order to analyse how junior researcher in academia, in the field of education, negotiate subject positions, make choices and shape their academic career. We argue that career is a process of transit, where researchers move, from place to place, in order to become a researcher. We work in line with Deleuze & Guattari (2004; Colebrook, 2010) and Braidotti (1994, 2002) concept of nomadology, which offers a way to analyze and understand how young researchers negotiate subject positions and shape their academic career. However, we do not use nomadology in a rigorous way, but as Rajchman (2000) describes as a map of connection. A connection with other possibilities: ... making visible problems for which there exists no program, no plan, no "collective agency (Rajchman, 2000, p.8). Rajchman (2000) points out the importance of not individualize the individual and instead try to look beyond the taken for granted social representation, that emerges from the informants' stories. The reserachers in this study are seen as: ... the tellers of experience, but every time telling is constrained, partial, and Determined by the discourses and histories That prefigure, even as They Might promise, representation (Britzman, 1995, p 232). Our "nomadic toolbox" therefore consists of the concepts of desire and becoming, nomadic subject position, the minority in becoming and deterritorialization. The empirical study was carried out at two large (research-based) and two small regional (poly-techs, non-doctoral) universities in Sweden. At these universities, institutions (5-8) as well as research units, embedded in educational sciences, have been analysed by means of interviews of 70 early career academics. In this article, we present a selection of these narratives (12 researchers) using pseudonyms. The in-depth interviews (Alvesson, 2011) varied between 50 and 100 minutes. The interviews concern how individual academics, describe their experiences of the positioning process, the conditions and the consequences, the sacrifices, choices and rewards. Discourse analysis is used to analyse how discourses and material conditions intersect in the construction of a nomadic subject positions (Braidotti, 1994, 2002 b). The results are presented by using metaphors illustrating one specific subject position, the nomad position of academia. The results, so far in progress, illustrate how these nomads move in spaces of transition, searching for legitimacy and power. Their bodily differences seem to give them various resources in order to become aware, conscious and safe. They express being un-recognized, left outside and not appreciated. Therefore, some distance themselves from learning the code of majority, describe how they feel caught in spaces in-between unable to become satisfied. However, some of them also give example of how e.g. intellectual freedom as a political standpoint, can compensate for the loss of a physical “home”, or even create other spaces of stability and satisfaction.
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| 13. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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Becoming an Academic Researcher
- 2014
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Ingår i: Policy Futures in Education. - 1478-2103. ; 12:2, s. 186-195
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The neo-liberal restructuring of academia justifies research concerning what constitutes academic work, what it means to be an academic researcher and how researchers manoeuvre in academia. The aim of this article is to investigate how this reshaping of higher education affects how research careers are formed and impacts on ‘becoming researchers’. The authors analyse the processes of becoming an academic subject by means of detailed cartographies of 14 early career researchers and their experiences of making a career in academia. The authors see the nomadic subject as being in a becoming process of constant change and mediation between different levels of power and desire. She or he constantly searches and shifts between a conscious desire and unconscious needs. By using three intersected themes – ‘feeling a bit alone’, ‘I do “my own thing”’ and ‘I decided to move’ – the authors have identified how these 14 researchers, in the processes of becoming an academic subject, are driven by desires that are making it difficult for them to understand and read their situations. There appears to be a tension between how they understand what they need to do and what they actually do. In conclusion, the authors illustrate how these nomadic researchers are made into unproductive individuals who underperform. Their otherness is often understood as and proclaimed to be self-made. That is why academics in a nomadic subject position often seem to blame themselves for their lack of ability to adjust to institutional demands for performativity.
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| 14. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970
(författare)
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Being Excellent in Academia
- 2016
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Ingår i: Gera Conference, Symposium “Spaces for Education, Spaces of Education”, 13-16 March 2016, Kassel, Germany..
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Konferensbidrag (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study include researchers who are active in Education Sciences, which is a new scientific field in Sweden that consists of a particular patterned set of practises, as designed for developing research of relevance to teaching and teacher education. Focus is on how this group of researcher are active in and understand a successful career, but also how they try to challenge dominating views. The results show that the “excellent researcher” use specific and often profitable spaces of transit in order to move. They act clear of where they are going and why, and often seem to know how to get the system to recognize them. Some argue that they move as they like, they enjoy their careers and do what is fun. Several also mention how they see their rewards in career as linked to their individual competences, more so than to the resources they have been given. Finally, the results illustrate how women more than men experience themselves as hindered in career.
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| 15. |
- Angervall, Petra, Professor, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges in developing professional knowledge, education, and practices in Swedish higher education
- 2023
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Ingår i: Book of All Abstracts and Papers. - Birmingham. ; , s. 199-198-199
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The formation of professionals and professions is, simultaneously, a core function of contemporary universities and a field of contestation where different worldviews, rationalities and aspirations meet. In this symposium, we will present an interdisciplinary research collaboration, called PHE (Professional knowledge in Higher Education), between four academic institutions in Sweden. These institutions regularly collaborate on research activities concerning professional knowledge, professional education and learning addressing core issues for the welfare state, for social justice, sustainable development, and higher education pedagogy. We will present the main motivations for this collaboration, its goals, and examples of its ongoing interdisciplinary research.The symposium will situate our collaboration in current public and academic debates on the growing societal demand for strong, flexible, and pluralistic professional programs in higher education and in doing so, also address pressing issues related to welfare, the knowledge economy, and the labour market. Such demands pose new challenges for universities today in regard to, for example, the need for expertise and pedagogy. Central to this collaborative project is a new interdisciplinary research school, SPETS (Studies in Professional Education and Training for Society), with doctoral students from all four institutions and inter-institutional supervision. In the symposium, five ongoing doctoral projects that represent current challenges and tensions in Swedish professional education and development will be presented. In Matilda B Svensson’s research, she highlights the policy turns of teacher education in Sweden and how they affect understandings of professional knowledge. Per Holmgren and Yihua Zhang examine how digitalization impacts what is seen as valuable knowledge and pedagogy in HE today and how digitalization is used to address some of the key issues in professional programs. Reghan Borer’s study concerns how public engagement is addressed in Swedish doctoral education, and Sara Svensson discusses the use of arts-based pedagogies to facilitate personal and professional development across a range of professional education programs. In Amoni Kitooke’s work, he explores community-oriented aspects of professional education, particularly praxis and knowledge issues in teacher education.These doctoral projects, in parallel with other joint activities and meeting points in this collaborative endeavour, address issues that include highly relevant intersections between digitalization, internationalisation, equity, policy and quality assurance, economic disparities, migration, and community welfare, which point to some of the challenges of developing professional knowledge, education and practices in higher education today.
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| 16. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970, et al.
(författare)
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Challenges in making an academic career in education sciences
- 2018
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Ingår i: British Journal of Sociology of Education. - : Informa UK Limited. - 0142-5692 .- 1465-3346. ; 39:4, s. 451-465
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The competitive university has brought about changes in structural conditions and created contradictions which are embedded in institutions. The present study is based on interviews with 42 early career researchers in the field of education sciences in Sweden. We analyse how members of this group handle career possibilities and limitations in relation to gender and to the structural ambivalence embedded in the higher education system. Our results illustrate that the structure of education sciences contains power relations and processes of differentiation, which give researchers different access to resources that can be used to handle structural ambivalence. This is illustrated in how, for example, women researchers, more than men, lack resources to solve the experienced tensions surrounding them, and therefore often work in areas where they are able to cope. Men researchers can often solve their career ambivalence by avoiding traps and gaining recognition, and are therefore able to advance.
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| 17. |
- Angervall, Petra, Professor, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Dividing academic work: gender and academic career at Swedish universities
- 2017
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Ingår i: Gender and Education. - 347-362 : Informa UK Limited. - 0954-0253 .- 1360-0516. ; 32:3, s. 347-362
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Recent changes within the higher education system have affected the balance of academic labour. This article is based on interviews with 25 women lecturers in Education Faculties at Swedish Universities. It specifically addresses the shifting balance in terms of the increased separation between teaching and research in relation to gender, and the relationship between career advancement and gender this promotes. Distinctions concerning gender and academic labour and an enhancement of these power structures are identified, as well as how these affect possibilities of academic advancement. In conclusion, this study illustrates how women academics understand and navigate their academic career in relation to gendered attributes of academic work such as competitiveness, caretaking and responsibility are discussed.
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| 18. |
- Angervall, Petra, 1970-
(författare)
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Doctoral supervision for career competition? Negotiating Social Capital in Research education.
- 2018
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Ingår i: The Peaceful University.
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Academic policy in Europe currently emphasizes efficiency and high performance along with ‘flexible entrepreneurialism’ and creativity in ways that can appear to be both contradictive and double edged on several levels in academic institutions (Ball, 2012; Bendix Petersen, 2009). The present paper relates to this aspect of higher education policy. It is based on a study with 52 research students on different doctoral programs in Education Sciences at six Swedish universities and asks questions about how these doctoral students understand, cope with and challenge different demands in their research education and what kind of relationship they have with their research supervisors. Supervisors constitute institutional and relational social capital in a double sense and are vital for how the research students' bond and link resources in research education (Putnam, 2001). As the data and analysis shows, in fact the students create directions and legitimacy in different practises (Nahapiet and Ghoshal, 1998) depending on the kind of social capital they have or gain access to: institutional or relational, individual-competitive or collective-horizontal and their social capital is thus related to what they can share collectively, such as in conferences, seminars and teaching. These activities help them to develop exchange and bonding value and form bridges between interests and networks; either horizontal or more vertical ones (e.g. influential contacts). Depending on the ‘academic value’ of the social capital of a research supervisor we see that these research students get access to specific and more or less ‘advantageous’ paths. Also, it appears as if social capital is unevenly shared and distributed between groups and individuals and is specifically related to gender (Moren Cross and Lin, 2008). This creates unequal conditions for men and women research students in research education.
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| 19. |
- Angervall, Petra, Professor, 1970-, et al.
(författare)
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Double Agendas in International Partnership Programs: A case study from an Ethiopian University
- 2021
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Ingår i: Education Inquiry. - : Informa UK Limited. - 2000-4508.
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper explores the policy discourses underpinning an inter-national higher education partnership involving a large Ethiopian university. Particular attention is given to a partnership pro-gramme established between an Ethiopian (EU) and a Norwegian (NU) university, and the main ideas and practices expressed and negotiated from an Ethiopian perspective. This study employs a theoretical framework based on critical policy analysis and a qualitative case study design using interviews and document analysis. The results illustrate how a loosely defined policy for international partnership in higher education frames the condi-tions and possibilities for this programme. Partnership in EU is based on policies that emphasise flexibility in various possibilities, but also with ambitions, foremost, to partner with a Northern university. In the EU, this partnership is viewed, mainly, as a means of academic growth and development while also con-voluted with concerns about resource dilemmas and dependency. This partnership programme, therefore, appears to be based on contradictions from which a double agenda emerges: striving for mutuality versus avoiding dependency, and local needs versus global achievements.
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| 20. |
- Angervall, Petra, et al.
(författare)
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Gendered networks in academia
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- This paper takes as a starting point the complexities and proposed changes of contemporary power relations within academia recognised throughout the Western world. For example, it is said that ‘traditional’ gender relations are losing ground as growing numbers of women position themselves in e.g. educational research (Murray & Maguire, 2007; Arnesen et al., 2008; HSV, 2008). However, the pattern is still that men occupy more senior positions (Ducklin & Ozga, 200; Kurtz-Costes et al., 2006; Silander, 2010). Notwithstanding, institutions are influenced by a growing performative discourse, which might affect the dominating power and gender relations in research work (Acker, 2008). Our paper presents preliminary findings from a Swedish research project, Gender and career in academia, the main aim of which is to develop knowledge about gender and other power relations within universities. Six academic institutions were selected to present a variety of departments of education/educational sciences according to location, size, major orientation, traditions, and externally funded research. We also interviewed approximately 120 doctoral students and junior researches, in order to map structures, positions and relations within research groups, and in doctoral programmes (Smith, 2005). Theoretically, we draw on Ball’s (2008, 2009), Rhodes’ (1997) and Newman’s (2001) ideas of governance and networks in institutional contexts. It is argued that academic institutions, departments and milieus vary with regard to social and economic capital (Bourdieu, 1986; Field, 2009; Lin, 2002), used as resources for power. These resources promote certain networks and groups before others, they condition scientific interests, and how positions are given and ordered, i.e. they enable different careers. We further agree with Connell (1996, 2002) and others who underline that gender can be performed differently depending on contexts, i.e. the power and gender regimes do not automatically follow the prevalent gender order. In this paper we focus on one of the six selected academic institutions. The aim is to show how individual and collective resources are provided and used from a power and gender perspective. A preliminary analysis shows that subject discipline, research traditions and external funding influence junior researchers’ possibilities to access horizontal and vertical networks and other career productive resources. Also, former supervisors are found to act as gatekeepers to networks and capital which condition career paths. Notions of gender and other social categories impact on junior researchers’ possibilities to be seen as ‘promising’ researchers with potentials to make a successful career. The analysis also illustrates how positions in the horizontal institutional network tend to affect positions provided by the vertical network. Resources (social, economic) used and provided in the horizontal network are often needed in order for the researcher to be admitted into the vertical network. Further, aspects of trust play an important role in the process, where institutional networks and different positions are established. We also argue that many vertical networks promote performativity and thereby exclude those (often women) lacking legitimacy and certain resources for power.
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