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Forming, Recruiting and Managing the Academic Profession pp 79–99Cite as

The Rise of Third Space Professionals: Paradoxes and Dilemmas

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Abstract

An increasing number of staff in higher education with both academic and professional credentials find themselves working on broadly based projects in what Whitchurch has described as Third Space environments (Whitchurch, High Educ Q 62(4), 377–396, 2008). Such environments do not sit easily in formal organisational structures and can be both ambiguous and uncertain. Those who work in them are likely to encounter a series of paradoxes and dilemmas, described in this chapter, and to develop their identities in relation to these. They are thereby extending ideas about what it might mean to be an academic or a professional in contemporary higher education.

The material in this chapter is drawn from a monograph by the same author: Whitchurch, C. (2013) Reconstructing identities in higher education: The rise of third space professionals. New York: Routledge. It is reproduced by kind permission of the publishers.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lifelong and Comparative Education, Institute of Education University of London, London, UK

    Celia Whitchurch

Authors
  1. Celia Whitchurch
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Correspondence to Celia Whitchurch .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. INCHER -Kassel, University of Kassel, Kassel, Germany

    Ulrich Teichler

  2. Graduate School of Education and HD, George Washington University, Washington, District of Columbia, USA

    William K. Cummings

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Whitchurch, C. (2015). The Rise of Third Space Professionals: Paradoxes and Dilemmas. In: Teichler, U., Cummings, W. (eds) Forming, Recruiting and Managing the Academic Profession. The Changing Academy – The Changing Academic Profession in International Comparative Perspective, vol 14. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16080-1_5

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