Becoming an academic can be an overwhelming, if not a completely consuming, experience, and conceptualising this process is often fraught with a lack of understanding of both the process and the subsequent implications. Many academics struggle with the notion of who they are, despite believing that they are aware of who they want to be and where they are situated on their academic journey.
This edited collection draws on the experiences of early and mid-career academics, as well as leaders in the field, to explore the role and contribution of the self when professionally undertaking research. Each chapter addresses valuable questions for academics to examine and articulate the self in ones work, and encourages the probing of the impact of academic engagement in higher education on individual fidelity to personal and professional values, beliefs and assumptions. With a focus on self-methodologies, including arts-based approaches to reflective and reflexive practice, the authors showcase methods that go beyond traditional reflective practice and explore the interplay of arts and self-practices.
Conceptualising the Academic Self offers transformative educational insights with both theoretical and practical applications. It serves as a comprehensive guide for novice academics to seasoned educators and researchers, as well as institutional leaders and policy influencers, addressing the challenges of self-conceptualisation and self-formation.
Introduction: Conceptualising the Academic Self; Victoria I. Ekpo and
David Allan
Part One. The Early Academic Journey
Chapter
1. Beyond Solitude: Crafting Identity through Collaborative
Side-Projects in Kairotic Spaces; Sharon Louise Smith
Chapter
2. Discovering the Power of Shared Journeys in Doctoral Education;
Carrie-Anne Sturt, Mariia Tishenina, Chiara Colombo, Jessica Eccles-Padwick,
Amelia Frances Ernest-Shay, Matthew Greenhalgh, Phuong Tu Nguyen, Keisha-Ann
Stewart, Thilini Nilanka Weerasooriya, and Delta Wright
Chapter
3. Revisiting the Past to Reimagine the Future: Memory Drawing as
Self-Reflexive Professional Learning in Academia; Ntokozo Mkhize-Mthembu,
Makie Kortjass, and Kathleen Pithouse-Morgan
Part Two. In the Midst of Academia
Chapter
4. The Academic Self as Craftsmanship; Victoria I. Ekpo
Chapter
5. Who do You Think You are? Enmeshing Personal, Teaching and
Research Identities in Feminist Work: The Personal is Still Political; Clare
Woolhouse
Part Three. From Academic to Leader: Stepping in and stepping out
Chapter
6. TRAIL: Navigating Multiple Identities of Teacher/ Researcher/
Artist/ Leadership in Academia; Una McCabe and Michael Flannery
Chapter
7. Doing Collaborative Professional Learning through Lesson Study;
David Allan
Conclusion: Self-Exploration and Collaboration; David Allan and Victoria I.
Ekpo
Victoria I. Ekpo is a lecturer in English Language Education and currently works as a College Liaison Tutor at Leeds Trinity University, UK. She is also a co-convenor of the Philosophy of Education SIG at BERA.
David Allan is Reader in Professional Education and Learning at Edge Hill University, UK and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Prism: Casting New Light on Learning, Theory and Practice. He has published widely in international peer-reviewed journals and books and has experience in editing special issues of journals.
