Professional Obtaining & Becoming Model a Way to Explain Unequal Academic Career Paths

Abstract

Academic career has visible and invisible components. The immediate perceptible part of an academic career is the status of a teacher in his university structure. What it can’t be seen is what the teachers do to achieve an academic position. This research analyses the academic actors informal communication networks like an invisible mechanism involved in the construction of an academic profession. The study uses the constructivist grounded theory research paradigm. The results revealed two main directions in the social construction of an academic career: ”Professional Becoming” and ”Professional Obtaining”. Each direction influence the perception of personal values, self esteem, social relations, efficiency & effectiveness and individual benefits. All these generate different results in the academic proffesion development in areas like teaching, researching, institutional relathions, national and international recognition, teacher-student parthership and personal emotional support. The study proposes explanations of professional paths and allows a reflexive and not intuitive assessment of personal action strategies. The effect of the model on academic career planning should be reflected in the rethinking and repositioning of teachers towards the implications of informal communication phenomenon in professional development.