Abstract
This thesis gives an account of an investigation of the relationship between academics’ conceptions of their professional identity and their attitudes and approaches to academic writing in a School of Education in a post-1992 university. It charts the origin of the researcher’s interest in this area and locates her within the study. Having established the study’s aims and the questions which guided it, the thesis critically examines relevant phenomena, namely the university, identity, research and academic writing. A theoretical perspective is developed and used to underpin an initial conceptual framework. This framework supports a tentative explanation of the connection between academics’ conceptions of their professional identity and their attitudes and approaches to academic writing. It is also used to guide the empirical work.A qualitative research approach is taken to this empirical work. A collaborative research strategy, drawing on narrative and arts-based inquiry, supports the development and presentation of the portraits of seven academics in one School of Education. A critical analysis of emergent themes follows, leading to the proposal of a new conceptual framework.
This new framework is used to explain the variation in academics’ capabilities, productivity and dispositions towards academic writing. Differing conceptions of professional identity are offered as an explanation of this variance. Accepting identity as fluid and changing, it is argued that academics’ conceptualisation of ‘Me as a professional’ encompasses a self-view as ‘Me as an academic writer’. This self-view is not developed in isolation but in the context of the university and School of Education as organisations.
Within these organisations, academics’ ability to be the professional they wish to be is linked to their stores of social and cultural capital and, through this, to their capacity for agential thought and action. It is suggested that the development of an authentic approach to writing, underpinned by a clear moral purpose, is highly significant in the promotion of individuals’ positive attitudes and approaches to academic writing.
The thesis concludes with proposals for the development of policy and practice in the particular context of the researcher’s School and university and, more tentatively, in the higher education sector.
| Date of Award | 2016 |
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| Original language | English |
| Awarding Institution |
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| Supervisor | Saranne Weller (Supervisor) & Paul Blackmore (Supervisor) |