Academic Citizenship Research Articles

Professing the vulnerabilities of academic citizenship

ABSTRACT As academics, we do not only produce and reproduce knowledge; we also produce our citizenship as a social and agonistic space. There are nuances embedded within academic citizenship – unqualifiable, but compelling in their production and reproduction of power dynamics, bringing into disrepute notions of academic citizenship as a homogenous or inclusive space. There are ways of being and becoming within citizenship that might be less readily conceivable, and hence, slip beneath the radar of scholarly scrutiny and debates.We have yet to delve into how we come into the presence of one another. In offering an expanded understanding of academic citizenship as alterity, I argue that academic citizenship has to involve wading into a curious uncertainty about the other so that the immensity of diversity, its unknown-ness, is brought to bear on the university, not as fear and estrangement, but as a rupture with a continuity of Othering.

The Dilemma of Unrelenting Workload Amidst Covid-19 Pandemic: An Agenda for University Female Academics

The dynamic changes in the South African higher education environment have seen academics immersed in increasing workloads to keep up with the university mandate. The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic has raised significant challenges for the higher education community and intensified complications related to workload and in particular for female academics. The understanding of the management of workload is pertinent, and therefore the article examines the components of workload and implications of the Covid-19 pandemic for female academics. A descriptive research design and a quantitative research approach were adopted, and data was collected from 54 female academics in an unidentified university in South Africa. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 and presented using a descriptive and inferential format. Also, the study adopted a systematic review of literature leveraging reputable sources. The findings revealed that (i) time allocation to academic activities of teaching and learning, research, postgraduate supervision, administration matters, community service, and academic citizenship remains a challenge facing universities, and (ii) Covid-19 imposed remote working arrangements resulting in increased workloads, leading to reduced research productivity and inability to achieve work-life balance for the female academics. The results of the study highlight the need for institutional review and policy development on the academic workload management system to ensure work-life balance for the female academics and output maximization for the university, especially during a pandemic.

Responsibilities and opportunities in language testing with respect to historicized forms of socio-political discrimination: A matter of academic citizenship

Responsibilities and opportunities in language testing with respect to historicized forms of socio-political discrimination: A matter of academic citizenship

Evaluating the Evaluators in Russia: When Academic Citizenship Fails

We examined the role of peer review in the quality assurance system developed for the regulation of higher education institutions in Russia. Given their negative attitude towards the state’s attempts to increase control over universities, how can the participation of academics in regulatory activity be explained? This essay applies resource allocation theory to suggest that engagement in academic service might depend on an individual’s performance of their core professional task: research. Results indicate that Russian academics who perform relatively poorly with respect to publications and citations in selective journals are more likely to engage in academic citizenship in the form of inspections.

The gradual retreat from academic citizenship

AbstractThis paper critically explores the notion of academic citizenship, evaluates its importance and argues that faculty have shifted away from engaging in collegial activities to behaviour that is purposefully targeted towards the attainment of academic performance metrics. We highlight the significant implications and challenges for the academy of a gradual retreat from academic citizenship in an era characterised by academic capitalism. We argue that university management urgently need to foster a culture of collegiality that fully appreciates and nurtures academic citizenship, particularly amongst junior faculty as they represent the future of the academy. Furthermore, we call for academic citizenship activities to be explicitly recognised in academic performance metrics and workloads to facilitate prioritisation by faculty.

제국의 시민권: 2020년과 19세기 영국문학 연구

This essay examines recent scholarship on imperialism and citizenship in nineteenth-century British literature. Against the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic and the Black Lives Matter Movement of 2020, events that prompted worldwide discussions on citizenship rights and racial (in)justice, this essay interrogates the relative scarcity of scholarship on citizenship in the subfield of nineteenth-century British literature. Drawing on the postcolonial insight of the North American journal Victorian Studies’s widely-discussed special issue for Spring 2020 titled “Undisciplining Victorian Studies,” this essay argues that studies on nineteenth-century citizenship requires an interdisciplinary approach connecting the achievements of diverse disciplines encompassing history, political science, sociology, and more. In the nineteenth century, the British people understood themselves as “British subjects” rather than citizens, which was not yet a concept fully legally embraced though the definition of citizenship was being actively developed in other contexts. Historically, discussions of British national citizenship focused on suffrage, which inevitably emphasized class as the central question. This essay proposes that gender and race deserve more scholarly attention, especially through an expanded understanding of a British imperial citizenship that can encompass more kinds of social belonging beyond the right to vote. The essay concludes by raising the the question of academic citizenship in order to highlight the importance of the inclusion and participation of scholars from both formerly colonized parts of the world and outside the British Empire.

Evaluating the Evaluators in Russia: When Academic Citizenship Fails

We examined the role of peer review in quality assurance system developed for regulation higher education institutions in Russia. Given the negative attitude to the state attempts to increase control over universities, why academics volunteered to participate in regulative activity? This article applies the resource allocation theory to explain the engagement in academic service depending on people’s success in their primary job. Results indicate that Russian academics who performed lower in respect with publications and citations in the selective journals are more likely to become an expert engaged in academic citizenship in the form of inspections.

Passport to the future: Boosting academic outcomes and citizenship through urban debate

This study examines the impact of a university-high school debate mentoring program on educational outcomes of high school graduates attending a racially segregated school in New Jersey, USA. Evidence shows that from 2011 to 2018, participants had stronger grade point average growth, higher cumulative grade point averages, and higher SAT scores relative to non-debating graduates. The sample ( N = 275) consists of 55 high school graduates who competed on the debate team and a control group of 220 non-debating graduates. Findings indicate debate graduates experienced a 0.81 GPA growth (2.5–3.31) from 9th grade to 12th grade while non-debate graduates exhibited a markedly lower 0.10 GPA growth (2.2–2.3). Debaters scored higher on particular sections of the SAT exam and overall SAT scores. The study provides evidence of the potential efficacy of debate team membership on student outcomes.

Interpreting academic integrity transgressions among learning communities

Educational institutions rely on academic citizenship behaviors to construct knowledge in a responsible manner. However, they often struggle to contain the unlawful reuse of knowledge (or academic citizenship transgressions) by some learning communities. This study draws upon secondary data from two televised episodes describing contract cheating (or ghostwriting) practices prevalent among international student communities. Against this background, we have investigated emergent teaching and learning structures that have been extended to formal and informal spaces with the use of mediating technologies. Learners’ interactions in formal spaces are influenced by ongoing informal social experiences within a shared cultural context to influence learners’ agency. Building upon existing theories, we have developed an analytical lens to understand the rationale behind cheating behaviors. Citizenship behaviors are based on individual and collective perceptions of what constitutes as acceptable or unacceptable behavior. That is, learners who are low in motivation and are less engaged with learning may collude; more so, if cheating is not condemned by members belonging to their informal social spaces. Our analytical lens describes institutional, cultural, technological, social and behavioral contexts that influence learner agency.

II Constituting SWIG Ireland: Community, Social Capital and Academic Citizenship

In this collection, several authors – ranging from early career to well established academics – consider the role of women and the female voice in academia. This compilation developed from a conference session organised by the Supporting Women in Geography (SWIG) Ireland group, at the Conference of Irish Geographers in University College Cork (UCC) in 2017. In the first piece, Ahern and Mc Ardle consider why this discussion is necessary at all, ruminating on examples from both within and outside of academia. Till then brings in her experience working in Ireland, the US and beyond, and reflects on the importance of including all voices, and challenges scholars to end gender discrimination in Ireland. Manzo then reflects on how female work in academia, similar to community organising, can be considered invisible, devalued labour (Daniels, 1987). Yet she focuses on the positives of this, outlining the women-centred community organising model, the social capital that is involved, and the range of activities for empowering women to alter the efforts in Irish academia to making this change. Meletis then widens this discussion with an international example of a group similar to SWIG Ireland, Inspiring Women Among Us (IWAU) in Canada. She reflects on the difficulty of being an inclusive group. These discussions are vital to tackling gender bias in Irish academia, yet all the authors agree this needs to be an ongoing conversation, a lived practice, and we hope this work inspires further contributions to this cause.

Combining Research and Academic Citizenship. Emergent Patterns in Italian Business Schools

Combining Research and Academic Citizenship. Emergent Patterns in Italian Business Schools

Peer review is academic citizenship

The exemplar held up by ASSAf's journal evaluation panels is the South African Journal of Science, with its full research studies, and its shorter research letters, and front-section commentaries, book reviews and news items [ ]hiding in plain sight, is the very high continuing incidence of plagiarism within the 17 South African management journals 6 That no outcry has occurred in this recurring instance is an indicator of a catastrophic failure of peer review and disciplinary and institutional accountability, with attendant costs to the Treasury [ ]in the age of big copyrighted data, reviewers should additionally be able to scrutinise the data bases on which studies are predicated and be privy to source codes of customised software 7 The best reviewers are those who (1) critically read and constructively engage the submission;(2) offer helpful comments to enable the author to improve the study;(3) refer authors to cognate studies that would strengthen (or contest) their own arguments and findings in a holistic mapping of the topic;and (4) submit reports on time, especially given the half-life of knowledge [ ]5) peer review assists in the much vaunted objective of 'de-colonisation' 8 As Ndlovu1 observes, when African-based scholars evade peer reviewing duties, editors have to rely on their overseas colleagues who may be insufficiently familiar with local contexts [ ]collaboration is part of the process, and on occasion I read sentences that I wrote in a report now being used verbatim by an author without attribution to the anonymous reviewer! [ ]do peer reviewers or para-authors voluntarily cede their intellectual property to someone else who cannot acknowledge reviewer generosity where a blunt blind procedure is applied

Behold the best and worst of me: the impostor phenomenon and academic behavior in the business area,

ABSTRACT The aim of this study was to analyze the relationship between the impostor phenomenon (IP) and the academic behavior of stricto sensu postgraduate students in business area courses. Discussing the relationship between psychological variables and student academic behavior is a topic of interest as empirical evidence indicates that these variables affect the environment in which scientific research is developed. It is important to look for elements that help in understanding the IP in order to reduce its impacts on the performance, behavior, and feelings of students. Postgraduate students enrolled in stricto sensu courses may be refusing opportunities to advance in their professional careers and adopting behaviors that are discordant with those desired by universities because they feel like impostors in terms of their abilities. Besides the relevance of the relationships analyzed, this research also uses the Meurer and Costa Scale of Academic Behaviors - Stricto Sensu (MCSAB-SS), which can measure academic behaviors displayed in Brazilian postgraduate courses, enabling the development of new investigations into the topic. The population includes postgraduates enrolled in 2018 in academic master’s, professional master’s, and academic doctorate courses in administration, accounting, and economics, known as the business area. The data collection was operationalized via a survey carried out online, which obtained 1,816 valid participations. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, exploratory factor analysis, and the Spearman’s correlation. Higher levels of impostor feelings are positively associated with displays of counterproductive academic behaviors and are mostly negatively associated with academic citizenship behaviors. After identifying the IP in students, actions to minimize these feelings can be implemented, given that postgraduate students with the IP may not be engaging in the activities that permeate stricto sensu, thus damaging the climate and culture of cooperation needed in academia.

Review of barriers women face in research funding processes in the UK

In the UK, women are underrepresented at the highest levels of academia in all subjects but nursing, but particularly in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) (Advance HE, 2018). Research, and the funding that enables research, is a critical point of career progression. Women apply less often and for lower amounts of funding, and are less successful than male colleagues (UK Research and Innovation, 2018). The common explanations given that women have to apply for more, and more often, do not sufficiently explain the gender disparities in research funding. This review critically evaluates some of the barriers and biases women face in the process of applying for research funding in the UK. Institutional barriers such as women carrying a heavier burden of teaching and academic citizenship, and lack of support, mentoring and visible role models impact on women’s success in securing research funding. Systematic barriers exist at many levels, particularly for parents and carers. These range from the impact of taking maternity leave, to grant deadlines falling during or shortly after school holidays and the requirement to travel for interviews. The focus on track record in grant review, biased language used in evaluation materials and unconscious biases on the part of reviewers further impact differentially on women. Lack of freedom to travel, and thus to network or attend conferences can result in exclusion from multi-national networks and the ability of parents to demonstrate an international profile. The policies and practices that impact on the ability of women to secure research funding must be reviewed and addressed with urgency for the benefit of the research community as a whole.

Academic identity and crossing boundaries: the role of the Programme Director in postgraduate taught programmes

ABSTRACT Taught postgraduate programmes (PGT) exist in a competitive global market and those leading such programmes have to chart a way through complex and often conflicting demands. Twenty-two Programme Directors (PDs) from one research-intensive university in the UK were interviewed individually about their experiences of leading PGT programmes. Interview transcripts were thematically analysed using Braun and Clarke’s method and we consider results in relation to circus acts, chosen to conceptualise the complexity and diversity of activities undertaken by the PDs, specifically: clairvoyant, conjurer, blind-folded tight-rope walker, trapeze-artist, contortionist and seasoned performer. PDs described the diversity of the role and high levels of autonomy needed to successfully perform it, but also perceived the role to be under-valued and not well understood or supported. Academic identity was considered to be fluid and permeable, largely related to PGT programmes often being situated on the boundary between academic and professional organisations, leading to many boundary-spanning behaviours. Teaching and student contact were the most rewarding aspect of the role, albeit with a strong sense that these senior teaching roles were less valued than research posts. In the absence of obvious support structures, a clear sense of trust and academic citizenship was reported in the provision of mutual support of others in the same position. There is a need to mobilise this nascent community to establish a strong coherent voice for this academic role to inform planning both for the support of postgraduate students and for those delivering the teaching.

The Effect of Service on Research Performance: A Study on Italian Academics in Management

Academics all over the world are feeling the increasing pressure to attain satisfactory research performance. Since research is not the only activity required of academics, though, the debate on how it may be coupled with other knowledge transfer activities like teaching, patenting, and dissemination has been captivating scholars interested in higher education. The literature is surprisingly silent about the interplay between research performance and other roles and tasks that faculty are expected to carry out, namely academic citizenship, intended as the service that they provide to their institution, to the scientific community, and to the larger society. Through a negative binomial regression conducted on 692 Italian academics in management, this paper investigates both the direct and moderating effect exerted by academic citizenship on the relationship between research performance in two subsequent evaluation exercises, thus advancing our knowledge of the relationship between research and service. Findings show that institutional service acts as a pure moderator, discipline-based service is a quasi-moderator, while public service exerts only a direct negative effect on research performance. In light of the emergent interplay between research and service, the necessity to boost reflection on academic citizenship is discussed and suggestions for its acknowledgement and advancement are formulated.

Excellent researcher or good public servant? The interplay between research and academic citizenship

Academics have always been endowed with the privilege of autonomy, but the diffusion of evaluation systems based on publication outcomes potentially jeopardizes the benefits deriving from behaviors that address other pillars of higher education. Besides research and teaching, academic citizenship, i.e., the service behaviors carried out within and outside organizational boundaries, are in fact cornerstones of university functioning. We investigate the relationship between academic citizenship and research after the introduction of an evaluation system that moves research performance to center stage on a dataset collecting publication records and service activities of 353 Italian scholars in the accounting discipline in the 2004–2013 period. A cluster analysis reveals different academics’ orientations towards research and academic citizenship. We contribute to the debate on academic choices by showing that a large number of university members tend to focus on a single type of academic citizenship or to adopt a research orientation, while a significant part remains stuck in the middle without achieving satisfying performance in any domains according to international standards, and discuss implications for the design of behavioral incentives.

The Interplay Between Academic Citizenship and Knowledge Transfer in Business Schools

Professional autonomy has always been a privilege pertaining to academics, but the diffusion of evaluation systems based solely on publication outcomes has constrained individual decisions, jeopardizing the potential beneficial effects deriving from more complex patterns of behaviors. Along with knowledge transfer, academic citizenship, i.e., the service activities and roles carried out within and outside organizational boundaries, is a cornerstone of university functioning, but in the literature, it has been largely overlooked so far. This study investigates the complementarity, substitution, and independence effects between academic citizenship and knowledge transfer in a sample of 752 Italian academics working in business schools. We collected data combining different sources including CVs, publication records, and national evaluation datasets. A system approach based on a multivariate path analysis was employed to measure the covariances between academic citizenship and knowledge transfer, and the effects of a set of antecedents related to previous pathways, research grants and awards, visiting scholarships, international collaborations, and some contextual features. We revamp the debate on academic citizenship by showing that public and discipline-based service are complementary to knowledge transfer activities, while institutional service is independent from knowledge transfer. We disclose that activities and roles are influenced by academics’ previous pathways, rather than by individual features or contextual characteristics, and we discuss the main implications for performance evaluation systems in the Academia.

A Seat at the Table: Strategic Engagement in Service Activities for Early-Career Faculty From Underrepresented Groups in the Academy.

Many academic institutions strive to promote more diverse and inclusive campuses for faculty, staff, and students. As part of this effort, these institutions seek to include individuals from historically underrepresented groups (URGs)-such as women, people from racial/ethnic minority populations, persons with disabilities-on committees and in other service activities. However, given the low number of faculty members from URGs at many institutions, these faculty members tend to receive more requests to provide service to the institution or department (e.g., serving on committees, mentoring) than their counterparts from majority groups. Faculty members from URGs, especially early-career faculty, thus risk becoming overburdened with providing service at the expense of working on other scholarly activities required for promotion and tenure (i.e., conducting research, publishing). Although many scholars and others have written about this "minority tax" and its implications for early-career faculty from underrepresented racial/ethnic minority groups, fewer have published about how this tax extends beyond racial/ethnic minorities to women and persons with disabilities. Further, the literature provides scant practical advice on how to avoid overburdening early-career faculty from URGs. Here, a group of multidisciplinary early- and mid-career faculty members from URGs seek to provide their peers from URGs with practical strategies for both evaluating the appropriateness of service requests and declining those that are not a good fit. The authors also provide institutional leaders with actionable recommendations to prevent early-career faculty from URGs from becoming overburdened with service.

Women professors and the academic housework trap

ABSTRACTWomen constitute just over one fifth of full professors in UK higher education and whilst work has emerged in recent years on professors as leaders, there has been comparatively little research about how this under-represented cadre define and practise their role as intellectual leaders. This paper seeks to analyse how women see their role as full professors through autobiographical accounts of their intellectual and career histories via interviews with women professors, and a small comparison group of male professors. A range of freedoms and responsibilities connected with the professorial role are identified along with personal qualities considered central to success. Both female and male professors understand their role principally in terms of research leadership, but women are more likely to emphasise the importance of academic citizenship, especially mentoring, compared to their male counterparts, an obligation that weighs especially heavily on women working in science, technology, engineering and mathematics areas. While these findings are indicative of the continuing effect of so-called ‘academic housework’ in holding back the academic careers of women, they are also a positive indicator of a commitment to an all-round role as an intellectual leader.