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Changing Biographies and Careers of Academics

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Forming, Recruiting and Managing the Academic Profession

Abstract

Given academics’ centrality to higher education it is natural to consider, in addition to working conditions (Locke W, Teichler U (eds). The changing conditions for academic work and careers in select countries. International Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel, Kassel, 2007), their personal characteristics, career trajectories, commitment and sense of identity as strategic for understanding the academic profession in general. In understanding what and how academics do their work, as well as its relevance, it is important to describe their work, as well as pertinent organizational and meta-organizational variables in detail. In addition to these aspects it is important to consider who the academics are, where they come from and, additionally, their expectations for the future. All such aspects are important to the extent that it would be natural to expect for them to have an influence in the work done by an academic. In this paper the authors take a look, after briefly commenting their data analysis approach, at findings from the 2007 CAP survey related to two key areas of full-time academics: changing biographies and changes to their academic career.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The CAP questionnaire asked, “What is your family status?” with the options for response as “married/partner”, “single”, and “other”. Although much of the literature on marriage and family status for academics has been conducted in countries where same-sex marriage is illegal, the CAP survey was designed to allow for participants to self-identify significant domestic partnerships rather than report legal marital status according to the definitions used in their jurisdictions.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Human Sciences and Institute of Engineering, Universidad Autónoma de Baja California, Mexicali, Mexico

    Jesús Francisco Galaz-Fontes

  2. Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

    Amy Scott Metcalfe

Authors
  1. Jesús Francisco Galaz-Fontes
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  2. Amy Scott Metcalfe
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Correspondence to Jesús Francisco Galaz-Fontes .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. INCHER -Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany

    Ulrich Teichler

  2. Graduate School of Education and HD, George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    William K. Cummings

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Galaz-Fontes, J.F., Metcalfe, A.S. (2015). Changing Biographies and Careers of Academics. In: Teichler, U., Cummings, W. (eds) Forming, Recruiting and Managing the Academic Profession. The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16080-1_3

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