As cuts in public-sector funding continue to affect the lives and careers of public-sector workers in the UK, and in other countries, there are added pressures on educational establishments to equip students with the knowledge and skills for employability, sustainable employment and career development in an employment marketplace characterised by…

This article confirms the reliability of a protean and boundaryless career attitudes scale, tested in a pilot study. Additionally, it summarises the results of this study into the career attitudes of professional staff in Australian and UK universities. A mixed methods approach was taken using a survey consisting of both closed questions on a…

Since the 1980s, research on employment conditions in post-secondary institutions has focused on the growth of contingent academic workers, or what the Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario (HEQCO) has labelled "non-full- time instructors" (Field, Jones, Stephenson, & Khoyetsyan, 2014). Very little attention, however, has been…

Young people in theory have a world filled with opportunity and longer lives to enjoy it. But for too many these opportunities are out of reach. Educational attainment is increasingly central to life chances, but more dependent on family background here than in other countries. Rises in insecure work along with stalled pay risk further divides…

In recent years, states have sought to increase accountability for public school teachers by implementing a package of reforms centered on high-stakes evaluation systems. We examine the effect of these reforms on the supply and quality of new teachers. Leveraging variation across states and time, we find that accountability reforms reduced the…

This study surveyed executive administrators of community colleges that had experienced a presidential transition between 2006 and 2009. Its purpose was to determine their perceptions of career risk associated with the community college position of president. The study compared the perceptional changes to a prior study on the same subject by…

Tenure provides professors with a unique level of job security and utmost respect in the academy (Shea, 2002). Receiving tenure and progressing through the academic ranks are among the most visible and valued accomplishments for college and university faculty (Perna, 2001). Faculty who achieve excellence in teaching, research, and service readily…

Soft skills programs (SSPs) for staff are now an established part of staff learning and development in organisations. The lived experience of university staff attending these types of programmes has until now remained largely unexplored. As part of a professional doctorate in education, I used autoethnography to investigate the 'social world' of…

The status of teaching and learning is an issue those providing and supporting higher education grapple with. The UK Higher Education Academy offers accreditation aligned to the professional standards framework (PSF). The PSF contextualises the role of teaching and supporting learning, and offers a mechanism for individuals' commitment to be…

This study inquires whistle blowing intentions of alternatively certified prospective teachers, investigating their moral reasoning to blow the whistle. Specifically three hypotheses were tested: Overall ethical awareness of the alternatively certified prospective teachers is high; the participants will identify reasons related to philosophical…

The University of Maryland at College Park is poised to embark on an unprecedented effort to improve the conditions of its faculty members who are off the tenure track. The campus's University Senate, which represents faculty members, administrators, students, and staff members, is scheduled to vote on an internal task-force report that…

Research shows that a lower proportion of women than men are in graduate level jobs, six months after leaving seven top UK universities. This paper presents new empirical evidence from a unique dataset on the significantly different attitudes and behaviours between Oxford men and women undergraduates that might explain why women are less likely to…

Academic work has traditionally been seen as relatively stress free. However, a growing number of studies have reported increases in occupational stress experienced by university researchers. In order to explain stress among this group, we build on a new perspective in occupational stress research: the so-called stress-as-offence-to-self…

Based on personal experiences garnered through years of adjunct instruction, the authors explore the challenges associated with working in academia without the guarantees of a long-term contract or tenure. Further, adjuncts are desperate to accept any position that is remunerative and this willingness undermines contract negotiation leverage of…

The main aim of this study was to examine the most relevant motivating factors (i.e. intrinsic, extrinsic and altruistic) influencing pre-service English school teachers to choose teaching as their profession. A small questionnaire was administered to 73 third-year student teachers at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB). Results indicate…