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Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education

Whitchurch, C; (2008) Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management , 30 (4) pp. 375-386. 10.1080/13600800802383042. Green open access

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Abstract

This paper describes an empirical study associated with earlier reviews of the changing roles and identities of contemporary professional staff in UK higher education (Whitchurch, 2004; 2006a; 2006b). The study draws on the narratives of twenty-four individuals to illustrate that identity movements cannot be captured solely in terms of a shift from ?administration? to ?management?, or of a collective process of professionalisation. Contemporary ideas about the fluidity of identity (Delanty, 2008; Taylor, 2008) are used to theorise the empirical data, and to develop a conceptual framework that describes emerging identities by means of three categories of bounded, cross-boundary, and unbounded professionals. This framework demonstrates that professional staff are not only interpreting their given roles more actively, but that they are also moving laterally across functional and institutional boundaries to create new professional spaces, knowledges, relationships and legitimacies. It is suggested, therefore, that the roles and identities of professional staff are more complex and dynamic than organisation charts or job descriptions might suggest.

Type: Article
Title: Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1080/13600800802383042
Additional information: This is an electronic version of an article published in Whitchurch, Celia (2008) Beyond administration and management: reconstructing the identities of professional staff in UK higher education. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 30 (4). pp. 375-386. ournal of Higher Education Policy and Management is available online at:http://www.informaworld.com/10.1080/13600800802383042
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Education, Practice and Society
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10023220
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