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Non-tenured Teachers, Higher Education

Synonyms

Contingent staff; Short-term appointment

Definition

Non-tenured academics are those who have a contract with a higher education institution (HEI) without possessing or carrying a guarantee of permanent employment. Non-tenured teachers can be in a tenure track position, if they are in a probationary period leading to a tenured position, or in a non-tenure track without necessarily having a probationary period and without the possibility of obtaining tenured.

Tenured and Non-tenured Academics in Higher Education

Having a permanent position has been considered an essential characteristic of the academic profession, since it is said to allow academic freedom. In Europe, a permanent position implies that academics have the guarantee of maintaining their job, dismissal only being possible with a “just cause.” Therefore, in most European countries, the permanent position corresponds to what is known as a tenured position in the USA. The concept of tenured designates, according to the...

Keywords

  • Performance Assessment Exercises
  • Academic Career Structure
  • Angervall
  • Musselin
  • Indefinite Appointment

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Acknowledgments

This work is funded by National Funds through the FCT–Foundation for Science and Technology under the project UID/CED/00757/2013.

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Correspondence to T. Carvalho .

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Carvalho, T., Diogo, S. (2018). Non-tenured Teachers, Higher Education. In: Encyclopedia of International Higher Education Systems and Institutions. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_292-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-9553-1_292-1

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