Skip to main content

The Paperwinner’s Model in Academia and Undervaluation of Care Work

Journal of Academic Ethics (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

The identity of an academic discipline is essentially tied to production and reproduction of its disciplinary knowledge. This, in turn, determines the criteria of academic achievement for academicians belonging to a particular discipline. The ability of an academician to contribute to the disciplinary knowledge through publication of high-impact papers is considered to be of highest value in academic disciplines. This constitutes an essentialist paradigm of understanding academic disciplines. Such a paradigm, however, undervalues other equally important forms of academic labour, like academic service, which support, develop and repair the academic world through practice of care. In his paper, the essentialist paradigm is critically appraised through Paperwinner’s Model, an adaptation of Breadwinner’s Model. Through the lens of ethics of care, specifically Joan Tronto’s responsibility-based ethics, the paper offers an alternate paradigm, the deflationary perspective on academia, to acknowledge and evaluate the significance of caring practices. The paper concludes with a formative suggestion to institutionally recognize and reward care through service-intensive positions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution.

Access options

Buy single article

Instant access to the full article PDF.

USD 39.95

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Notes

  1. Further investigations on this aspect can also be found in Llorens et al., 2021d Meara et al., 2016.

  2. In this paper, academia denotes academic life as a whole, including scholars and students of the academic world and their activities. The term ‘academic world’ is also interchangeably used with the term ‘academia’. An academic discipline is a specific branch of knowledge institutionalised within academia through higher educational institutions. A citizen of academia, an academician, is a member of a specific academic discipline (including affiliated entities like professional organisations and associations) and a particular higher educational institution (and affiliated communities like committees).

  3. In the 2004 study, a total of 107 surveys were sent to chairs, of which 74 surveys were returned. In the 2006 study, a total of 98 surveys were sent out to the chairs, of which 42 were returned. In total, 196 surveys were distributed to the faculty members, of which 56 were returned. Cipriano and Riccardi noted that the low rate of return can be attributed to the methodology which was exercised to distribute the surveys where chairs were requested to complete and further, share the additional surveys with two faculty members of their departments. Owing to this, it was not possible to ascertain whether the surveys reached faculty members or not.

References

  • Ajiferuke, I., Burell, Q., & Tague, J. (1988). Collaborative coefficient: A single measure of the degree of collaboration in research. Scientometrics, 14, 421–433. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02017100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Allmark, P. (1995). Can there be an ethics of care? Journal of Medical Ethics, 21, 19–24

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Apostel, L. (1972). Conceptual Tools for Interdisciplinarity: An Operational Approach. Interdisciplinarity: Problems of Teaching and Research in Universities (pp. 141–180). Paris: OECD

    Google Scholar 

  • Bailyn, L. (2003). Academic Careers and Gender Equity: Lessons Learned from MIT. Gender Work & Organization, 10, 137–153. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0432.00008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baker, S. (1999). Success for Women in Academia: Choices, Experiences, and Challenges. Women in Science and Engineering: Choices for Success, 869(1), 210–218. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1999.tb08378.x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Balderston, F. E. (1995). Managing today’s university: Strategies for viability, change, and excellence. Jossey-Bass Publishers

  • Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2009). Principles of Biomedical Ethics (6th ed.). Oxford University Press

  • Becher, T., & Trowler, P. (2001). Academic tribes and territories: Intellectual enquiry and the cultures of disciplines. Open University Press

  • Bensimon, E. M., Ward, K., & Sanders, K. (2000). The Department Chair’s Role in Developing New Faculty into Teachers and Scholars. URL: Anker Publishing Company. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED443299

    Google Scholar 

  • Bianchi, S. M., Milkie, M. A., Sayer, L. C., & Robinson, J. P. (2000). Is Anyone Doing the Housework? Trends in the Gender Division of Household Labour. Social Forces, 79(1), 191. https://doi.org/10.2307/2675569

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Blackford, R. (1998). Academia and Equal Pay. Quadrant, 42(9), 51–54

    Google Scholar 

  • Boice, R. (2000). Advice for New Faculty Members: Nihil Nimus. Allyn & Bacon Press

  • Bubeck, D. (1995). Care, Gender and Justice. Clarendon Press

  • Cipriano, B., & Riccardi, R. (2009). Faculty expectations regarding personnel decisions. Special report: Faculty promotion and tenure: Eight ways to improve the tenure review process at your institution (Special Report). Faculty Focus. URL: http://www.facultyfocus.com/free-reports/faculty-promotion-and-tenure/

  • Cook, J. B. (2005). Doing the Tough Work: Care and the Dynamics of Community-University Engagement. Doctoral Dissertations – 2191. University of New Hampshire. URL: https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/2191

  • Cooper, K. S., & Miness, A. (2014). The Co-Creation of Caring Student-Teacher Relationships: Does Teacher Understanding Matter? The High School Journal, 97(4), 264–290. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43281034

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Correll, S., Benard, S., & Paik, I. (2007). Getting a job: Is there a motherhood penalty? American Journal of Sociology, 112(5), 1297–1338. https://doi.org/10.1086/511799

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • de Raeve, L. (1996). Caring intensively in philosophical problems. In D. Greaves, & H. Upton (Eds.), Health Care (pp. 9–22). Ashgate Publishing Ltd.

  • De Rond, M., & Millier, A. N. (2005). Publish or Perish: Bane or Boon of Academic Life? Journal of Management Inquiry, 14, 321–329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Demetrulias, D. M. (1994). Caring: Its Centrality to Teachers and Teacher Education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 21(2), 91–100. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23475736

    Google Scholar 

  • Doyle, L. H., & Doyle, P. M. (2003). Building Schools as Caring Communities: Why, What, and How? The Clearing House, 76(5), 259–261. http://www.jstor.org/stable/30189844

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Elliott, D. B. (2013). Salami Slicing and the SPU: Publish or Perish? Ophthalmic and Physiological Optics, 3, 625–626

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • England, P. (2005). Emerging Theories of Care Work. Annual Review of Sociology, 31, 381–399. http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737725

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • England, P., & Folbre, N. (1999). The Cost of Caring. The Annals of the American. Academy of Political and Social Science, 561, 39–51. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1049280

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Engster, D. (2007). The Heart of Justice. Oxford University Press

  • Fairweather, J. (2002). The Mythologies of Faculty Productivity: Implications for Institutional Policy and Decision Making. The Journal of Higher Education, 73(1), 26–48

    Google Scholar 

  • Finkelstein, M. J., Seal, R. K., & Schuster, J. H. (1998). The new academic generation: a profession in transformation. Johns Hopkins University Press

  • Finsen, L. (2002). Faculty as institutional citizens: Reconvening service and governance work. In L. A. McMillin, & J. Berbert (Eds.), The new academic compact: Revisioning the relationship between faculty and their institutions (pp. 61–86). Anker Publishing House

  • Fisher, B., & Tronto, J. (1990). Toward a Feminist Theory of Care. In K. Emily, Abel, & M. K. Nelson (Eds.), Circles of Care: Work and Identity in Women’s Lives. State University of New York Press

  • Folbre, N., & Nelson, J. A. (2000). For Love or Money -- Or Both? The Journal of Economic Perspectives, 14(4), 123–140. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2647078

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gilligan, C. (1982). In A Different Voice. Harvard University Press

  • Glucksmann, M. (2000). Cottons and casuals: The gendered organisation of labour in time and space. Sociology Press

  • Guarino, C. M., & Borden, V. M. H. (2017). Faculty Service Loads and Gender: Are Women Taking Care of the Academic Family? Research in Higher Education, 58, 672–694. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-017-9454-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Halwani, R. (2003). Virtuous Liaisons: Care, Love, Sex, and Virtue Ethics. Open Court Pub Ltd.

  • Hamington, M. (2004). Embodied Care: Jane Addams, Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Feminist Ethics. University of Illinois Press

  • Hardré, P. L., & Cox, M. (2009). Expectations and standards of faculty performance in research-extensive universities. Research Papers in Education, 24, 383–419

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Held, V. (2006). The Ethics of Care. New York, NY: Oxford University Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, B. A. (1997). Analysing institutional commitment to service. Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning, 4, 430–441

    Google Scholar 

  • Holland, B. A. (1999). Factors and strategies that influence faculty involvement in public service. Journal of Public Service and Outreach, 4, 37–43

    Google Scholar 

  • Krishnan, A. (2009). What Are Academic Disciplines? Some Observations on the Disciplinarity vs. Interdisciplinarity Debate (Working paper). ESRC National Centre for Research Methods

  • Kuhse, H. (1997). Caring, Nurses, Women and Ethics. Blackwell Publishing House

  • Litt, J. S., & Zimmerman, M. K. (2003). Guest Editors’ Introduction: Global Perspectives on Gender and Carework: An Introduction. Gender and Society, 17(2), 156–165. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594685

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Llorens, A., Tzovara, A., Bellier, L., Bhaya-Grossman, I., Bidet-Caulet, A., Chang, W. K., Cross, Z. R., Dominguez-Faus, R., Flinker, A., Fonken, Y., Gorenstein, M. A., Holdgraf, C., Hoy, C. W., Ivanova, M. V., Jimenez, R. T., Jun, S., Kam, J. W. Y., Kidd, C., Marcelle, E., & Dronkers, N. F. (2021). Gender bias in academia: A lifetime problem that needs solutions. Neuron, 109(13), 2047–2074. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2021.06.002

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lucas-Thompson, R. G., & Goldberg, W. A. (2015). Gender ideology and work–family plans of the next generation. Gender and the work-family experience (pp. 3–19). Springer

  • Luchs, C., Seymoure, S., & Smith, W. (2011). An Examination of Faculty Beliefs Concerning P&T Decisions. Contemporary Issues in Education Research (CIER), 4, 35. https://doi.org/10.19030/cier.v4i12.6660

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lynton, E. A. (1995). Making the case for professional service. Stylus Publishing

  • McClellan, B. (1999). Moral education in America: schools and the shaping of character from colonial times to the present. Teachers College Press

  • McLaren, M. (2001). Feminist Ethics: Care as a Virtue. Feminists Doing Ethics. Rowman and Littlefield

  • Meagher, G. (2002). Is It Wrong to Pay for Housework? Hypatia, 17(2), 52–66. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3810750

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Meyer, M. (2000). Care work: Gender, class, and the welfare state. Routledge

  • Meyers, S. A. (2009). Do your students care whether you care about them? College Teaching, 57(4), 205–210. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25763396

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Milligan, C., & Wiles, J. (2010). Landscapes of care. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6), 736–754. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132510364556

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Mitrano, B. S. (2014). Men, Teaching, and Caring: Perspectives and Possibilities. Schools: Studies in Education, 11(2), 306–320. https://doi.org/10.1086/678220

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Meara, K. A. (2016). Whose Problem Is It? Gender Differences in Faculty Thinking About Campus Service. Teachers College Record, 118, 1–38

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Neetha, N. (2010). Estimating Unpaid Care Work: Methodological Issues in Time Use Surveys. Economic and Political Weekly, 45(44/45), 73–80. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20787532

    Google Scholar 

  • Newman, M. E. J. (2004). Co-authorship networks and patterns of scientific collaboration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 101 (Suppl 1), 5200–5205. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0307545100

  • Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A Feminine Approach to Ethics and Moral Education. University of California Press

  • Noddings, N. (1999). Justice and Caring: The Search for Common Ground in Education. Teachers College Press

  • Noddings, N. (2012). The caring relation in teaching. Oxford Review of Education, 38(6), 771–781. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42001791

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Paley, J. (2006). Past caring - The limitations of one-to-one ethics. In A. J. Davis, V. Tschudin, & de L. Raeve (Eds.), Essentials of Teaching and Learning in Nursing Ethics (pp. 149–164). Churchill Livingstone

  • Penn State Altoona University (2018). Service and the Scholarship of Service to the University, Society, and the Profession. URL: https://altoona.psu.edu/offices-divisions/academic-affairs/promotion-tenure/education-human-development-social-sciences/service-and-scholarship-service-university-society-and-profession

  • Perry, C. M., Russell, J., & Quaglia (1997). Perceptions of Teacher Caring: Questions and Implications for Teacher Education. Teacher Education Quarterly, 24(2), 75–82. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23478135

    Google Scholar 

  • Pfeifer, H. L. (2016). How to be a Good Academic Citizen: The Role and Importance of Service in Academia. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 27(2), 238–254. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2015.1128706

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plume, A. (2013). Publish or Perish: Maximizing the Impact of your Next Publication, City Graduate School Welcome Event, 18 November. URL: https://www.city.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0003/218487/1119-Publish-or-perish-Andrew-Plume.pdf

  • Plume, A., & Van Weijen, D. (2014). Publish or Perish? The Rise of the Fractional Author. Research Trends, 30(3), 16–18

    Google Scholar 

  • Rachels, J. (1999). The Elements of Moral Philosophy. McGraw-Hill

  • Rainnie, A., Goods, C., Bahn, S., & Burgess, J. (2013). The Challenges of Working in Australian Academia: An Introduction. Labour & Industry: a journal of the social and economic relations of work, 23(3), 191–199. https://doi.org/10.1080/10301763.2013.839080

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruddick, S. (1998). Care as Labour and Relationship. In M. S. Haflon, & J. C. Haber (Eds.), Norms and Values: Essays on the Work of Virginia Held. Rowman & Littlefield

  • Slote, M. (2007). The Ethics of Care and Empathy. Routledge

  • Straits, W. (2007). ‘She’s Teaching Me’: Teaching with Care in a Large Lecture Course. College Teaching, 55(4), 170–175. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27559340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sevenhuijsen, S. (1998). Citizenship and the Ethics of Care. Routledge

  • Thomas, R., & Davies, A. (2002). Gender and New Public Management: Reconstituting Academic Subjectivities. Gender Work and Organization, 9(4), 372–397. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0432.00165

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tierney, W. G., & Bensimon, E. M. (1996). Promotion and tenure: Community and socialization in academe. State University of New York Press

  • Tronto, J. (1993). Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for an Ethic of Care. Routledge

  • Tronto, J. (2006). Women and Caring: What can Feminists learn about morality from Caring?. In V. Held (Ed.), Justice and Care: Essential Readings in Feminist Ethics (pp. 101–115). Westview Press

  • Walker, U. (1997). Moral Understandings: A Feminist Study in Ethics. Oxford University Press

  • Ward, K. (2003). Faculty service roles and the scholarship of engagement. ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report - Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series, 29, 5

Download references

Acknowledgements

This paper has been possible with the help of many vibrant discussions and debates, over the past two years, with Alan Nelson Isaac, Deepshikha Sharma (Teaching Fellow, KREA University), and Jayshree Jha (PhD Candidate, Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi). I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who shared their thoughts and perspective, motivating me to question and address diverse tangents related to the theme. Further, many thanks to the following citizens of my academic world for sharing their perspectives on research, and academic service, which stimulated me to think about its varying aspects - Dr. Balaganapathi Devarakonda (Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of Delhi), Dr. R. Krishnaswamy (Associate Professor, Jindal School of Liberal Arts and Humanities), Dr. Meenakshi Singh Tomar (Associate Professor, Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University), Dr. Tanushree Sharma (Professor, Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University), Dr. Lakhnath Jaysinghe (Professor, Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University), and Dr. Diptiman Banerjee (Associate Professor, Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Jindal Global Business School, O P Jindal Global University, Sonipat, India

    Sahana V Rajan

Authors
  1. Sahana V Rajan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Sahana V Rajan.

Ethics declarations

Statements and Declarations

  • I confirm that I have read, understand, and agreed to the submission guidelines, policies, and submission declaration of the journal.

  • I confirm that the manuscript is the authors’ original work and the manuscript has not received prior publication and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

  • I confirm that the paper now submitted is not copied or plagiarized version of some other published work.

  • I declare that I shall not submit the paper for publication in any other Journal or Magazine till the decision is made by journal editors.

  • I declare that no funding was received to assist with the preparation of this manuscript.

  • I confirm that data sharing is not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Rajan, S.V. The Paperwinner’s Model in Academia and Undervaluation of Care Work. J Acad Ethics (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-022-09460-6

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10805-022-09460-6

Keywords

  • Academic service
  • Publications
  • Research
  • Ethics of care