The construction of academic identity in the changes of Finnish higher education

Abstract

This article sets out to explore how academics make sense of the current transformations of higher education and what kinds of academic identities are thereby constructed. Based on a narrative analysis of 42 interviews with Finnish academics, nine narratives are discerned, each providing a different answer as to what it means to be an academic in the present-day university. Narratives of resistance, loss, administrative work overload and job insecurity are embedded in a regressive storyline, describing deterioration of academic work and one's standing. In a sharp contrast, narratives of success, mobility and change agency rely on a progressive storyline which sees the current changes in a positive light. Between these opposites, narratives of work–life balance and bystander follow stable storylines, involving a neutral stance toward university transformations. The paper concludes that academic identities have become increasingly diversified and polarized due to the managerial and structural changes in higher education.