Sessional staff are commonly excluded from opportunities which can enhance their professional development, despite being responsible for the majority of university teaching. For educators teaching in widening participation or enabling programs, this can create additional separation or feelings of being 'illegitimate'. This article interrupts such…

Autistic people are under-represented in university student populations, but their numbers are growing, and the barriers to their inclusion are being recognised. Outside of the student body, autistic people in academia are often overlooked, although this is starting to change with the growth in inclusive autism research. However, they remain…

Australian higher education has faced both global economic and environmental challenges, including most recently the COVID-19 pandemic. To deliver in this resource constrained environment, academic workforce and academic roles are being reshaped. Teaching and education focused academic roles are rapidly increasing but come with opportunities and…

There has been extensive research conducted into the plight of casual academic staff, the precarious nature of their work, their limited academic development opportunities, and their heightened risk of being positioned on the periphery of the workforce in academia. Institutions have attempted to mitigate this risk through the provision of academic…

Within the neoliberal university, scholarship, education, students, academic staff, and practices are subordinated to managerial imperatives. University educators are denigrated and displaced by colonising neoliberal practices that systemically invalidate and invisibilise academic work. The present article provides an example of this by critically…

The recasting of teaching as a technical enterprise rather than as a space for intelligent problem-solving means that governments around the world will continue to pursue agendas to regulate and prescribe teacher education. Teacher education reform has been attempted for over 30 years in many countries around the world, yet the crucial priority of…

This article draws on findings from a qualitative case study of a first-year online unit (subject) offered by a large public university through Open Universities Australia. It includes the student voice, taken from formal evaluation surveys, and the voice of casual academic tutors, provided through first-hand interviews and questionnaires. What…

Faculty constitutes one of the most important elements of higher education institutions. Their role is key in curriculum development, in guiding students' learning and driving their engagement, in conducting research, and in the overall success of their institutions. This paper presents the results of a number of faculty interviews and a focus…

Increasing global teacher attrition rates and the difficulty of filling teacher positions in Australian schools have led to rising concerns about teacher supply and demand. While attrition factors and rates have been known for over thirty years, little has changed or improved. This raises the question, 'how and why do some teachers continue while…

There have been widespread changes to working arrangements and employment relationships, including significant decreases in continuing/full-time employment contracts. This trend is particularly notable in academia, with more universities relying on the expertise of sessional, teaching-focused academics. This qualitative study extends understanding…

Every year school districts must fill tens of thousands of teacher vacancies in mathematics and science. Reasons for the high rate of attrition are described in general terms, such as lack of administrative support and dissatisfaction. Analysis of direct quotes from qualitative research, however, suggests the presence of cognitive errors within…

There is little empirical research related to the readiness and capacity of academics for team-based collaboration. This case study used the existing literature about collaboration as a term of reference to examine the perceptions of a group of academics engaged in course design and how prepared they were individually and as teams for…

There is a growing divide between ongoing and precarious academics in Australia. Precarious academics are often exploited, underpaid, and have little hope of gaining permanency. In this article we offer suggestions to ongoing academics on how to improve the working lives and conditions of precarious colleagues. Our suggestions range from easy and…

The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial…

In quantifying and qualifying the scope of academic labour, workload models serve multiple ends. They are intended to facilitate equitable and transparent divisions of academic work, to provide academics with a sense of whether their workload is reasonable relative to their colleagues, and universities with a mechanism for rationalising the…