Despite the diversity of entry points into academia, little research exists examining the experiences and impact of precarious employment at different life stages. Drawing on interviews with 19 academics employed casually or on fixed-term contracts in Australian universities, this paper illustrates how precarious employment is experienced at…

Whether or not disadvantaged students are realising the same benefits from higher education as their peers is of fundamental importance to equity practitioners and policymakers. Despite this, equity policy has focused on access to higher education and little attention has been paid to graduate outcomes. The Australian study reported here used…

This article documents the experiences of three early career academics trying to establish a network of early career academics (ECAs) in a middle-ranked university in Australia. The changing context of academia means that ECAs face considerable challenges in understanding and negotiating effective career paths. Some of the issues encountered…

The McDonaldization of higher education refers to the transformation of universities from knowledge generators to rational service organizations or "McUniversities". This is reflected in the growing dependence on a casualized academic workforce. The article explores the extent to which the McDonaldization thesis applies to universities…

This article explores the issues casual academics face in Australia and whether these pose risks to teaching quality. The logic of the rampant casualisation in Australian universities is exposed first (i.e., mainly flexibility and cost saving to offset drops in government funding), followed by a discussion on the theoretical risks casualisation…

The University of Tasmania established a project in 2009 to investigate the particular needs of casual teaching staff, identify strategies to improve access to information, and facilitate a consistent approach to employment, induction, development and recognition. The project was managed by the university learning and teaching centre, and…

The use of casual staff, including casual teaching staff, is a common practice in Australian universities and the numbers of casual staff in the sector has increased significantly in the last decade. The traditional profile for casual teachers was that of industry expert and students. Recent research has shown that the casual teacher is now more…

In 2003/4, 13 Australian universities took part in a follow-up survey of occupational stress following an earlier one conducted in 2000. More than 6000 staff participated at each time, of whom 969 (stayers) participated at both times. This paper presents the cross-sectional data obtained on both occasions as well as the longitudinal data provided…