Programme Leaders (PLs) in Higher Education (HE) hold a complex role that has responsibilities that link to external performance metrics. This role, existing outside of the traditional teaching/research view means it often lacks visibility and esteem (MacFarlane, 2007). How this influences role-holders' understanding of the role, and how they can…

Managing boundaries between students' work and study roles is crucial for success at university. Little research has examined the strategies used to manage these roles, the factors that relate to implementing them, and the outcomes associated with their use. Boundary management theory, an identity-based perspective, explains boundary management…

Motivated by growing trends to require doctoral students to be supervised by panels rather than single supervisors, our study investigates how these resulting structural changes affect students' and supervisors' agency and the co-construction of their identity. Using role theory as a framework to analyze the narratives of a matched sample of…

Theory of Mind (ToM), a central feature of social cognition, impacts social functioning and academic competencies. Yet, the interplay of ToM and self-concept in academic context remains unknown. This study examines how ToM shapes adolescents' academic self-concept and its association with academic competence, while considering the role of gender…

Background: Identifying as an engineer is essential for belonging and student success, yet the social context and professional norms make it more difficult for some students to establish an identity as an engineer. Purpose/Hypothesis: This study investigated whether first-generation college students' funds of knowledge supported their engineering…

The expectations students bring to Higher Education (HE) are explored, as well as the way they handle the clash between what they expect and what they actually find when attending Engineering programs. This study intends to understand if dissimilar engineering student profiles can be identified when considering the centrality of the student's role…

The marketization of higher education and focus on graduate employability and earnings data has raised questions about how students perceive their roles and responsibilities while studying for their degree. Of particular concern is the extent to which students identify themselves as consumers of their higher education, for example, whether they…

In this paper, we share the results of a cross-institutional study considering the impact serving as a peer mentor has on upper-level undergraduate students. Using a focus group methodology, we interviewed students in peer mentoring programs at two universities with the goal of identifying commonalities between the two sites regarding the benefits…

This article aims to give insight into the professional identities of seven teachers who teach English literature to Grade 10-12 learners, in the North-West district of South Africa. The focus is on how these teachers' experiences are shaped by larger determinants (social, historical, professional, etc.), and how their experiences might resonate…

Creativity is essential to knowledge production within universities and beyond. Yet, conditions for creativity receive scant scholarly attention as a feature of doctoral development, or as an element of institutional evolution within higher education. Even fewer authors have considered how creativity may be linked to doctoral students' academic…

This article explores the affordances provided by altering the way in which a traditional structured classroom is perceived. The article, through an exploration of reconfiguring a classroom space in a drama intervention, outlines the affordances provided to young vulnerable people and the adults that they work with. Such reconfigurations are…

Background: This small study explores the lived experience of four UK-based fathers (one black British, one white Polish and two white British) caring for at least one child with a dual diagnosis of learning disability and autism. The key aim was to get as close as possible to understanding the experience of these fathers in their role as carers.…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how the construction of entrepreneurial identity in a cross-disciplinary postgraduate entrepreneurship education program influence students' entrepreneurial passion progression as they enact different role identities and concurrently deal with competing microidentities. Design/methodology/approach: Using the…

Findings from interviews with mid-career academics in English and Australian universities elucidate how academics interpret and navigate complex institutional contexts in shaping academic jobs. The paper argues that how they do this is a function of what they notice and respond to as well as the mode of reflexivity they employ. Three core areas…

The effects of performativity in academic life are widely discussed and debated. Yet most analysis relies on conventional forms of empirical enquiry, notably interviews and questionnaires. The curriculum vitae (CV) is a comparatively neglected source of insight into the changing nature of academic life that offers a fresh insight. Drawing on the…