THE STUDY OF ACADEMIC CAREERS: LOOKING BACK, LOOKING FORWARD

Abstract

In many respects, the study of academic careers is quite new (in “academic” time)—certainly, no more than half a century old. It coincides largely with the emergence to global prominence of the American university and the explosive growth of American higher education following WorldWar II (WWII). As higher education transitioned from an elite to a mass system (Trow, 1973), and as a federally subsidized, university-based research and development enterprise was constructed as a bulwark of the national defense, the academic professions came to be perceived as a vital national resource and a worthy object of empirical study (see Bowen and Schuster, 1986; Finkelstein, 1984). Stimulated by the publication of Logan Wilson’s pioneering volume, The Academic Man (Wilson, 1942, 1979), the pace of empirical inquiry slowly gathered steam in the 1950s and literally mushroomed by the late 1960s, attaining a critical mass by the mid 1970s in terms of an identifiable repertoire of conceptual frameworks, theoretical propositions, and descriptive generalizations (Finkelstein, 1984). *** based on the US experience!! * three phases in research on academic careers, but continuity and coherence * concluding comments: * academic career paths are multiple not singular ** "future research will need to diversify its assumptive foundation. That is, we will need to assume that there are multiple models of academic careers and at once be more precise in distinguishing one from another at the same time that we continue to consider the relative independence or permeability of these tracks" (203) * academic recruitment tio the US is globalising, academic careers are both internationalising and localising ** "...in addition to mapping the career trajectories of new types of academic appointments, the study of academic careers will need to distinguish more clearly among academic disciplines (perhaps, even as arenas within the various new appointments) as venues for academic careers that differ not only in degrees of employment opportunity, but in their geographic boundedness" (204)