Abstract
This chapter addresses a contradiction in conversations about academic life and career-building: deciding that not playing the game is what it takes to stay in the game. Our sector’s culture is highly competitive and increasingly metricised. Career ambition in higher education is often problematically valorised and narrowly defined as wanting to climb the promotion ladder. When academics cultivate a measure of work /life balance, which necessarily de-prioritises the dominance of time given to academic activity, they are disadvantaged. This chapter argues that this inability to recognise the range and depth of experience that academic staff bring to their roles impoverishes our work culture . In particular, I discuss how universities often only pay lip-service to being ‘family-friendly’ organisations that prioritise their staff wellbeing . While the policies and guidelines may accommodate better ways of juggling work and caring commitments, the surrounding culture of the workplace—indeed, the whole sector—may not. I was an outputs-driven fixed-term researcher for many years, and my life circumstances have altered enough that I no longer feel able or willing to work in such a way. I have worked to create a context where I sustain a good blend of work , personal life and activism. This directly compromises my academic career progression in different ways, including being seen to be lacking in the right kind of ambition , and not being able to compete in a hypercompetitive academic environment. This chapter examines the complexities of negotiating work/life balance and discusses what systematic cultural changes are necessary.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Acker, S. (2014). A foot in the revolving door? Women academics in lower-middle management. Higher Education Research and Development, 33(1), 73–85.
Baker, M. (2010). Career confidence and gendered expectations of academic promotion. Journal of Sociology, 46(3), 317–334. https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783310371402.
Barrett, L., & Barrett, P. (2011). Women and academic workloads: Career slow lane or Cul-de-Sac? Higher Education, 61(2), 141–155. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-010-9329-3.
Bell, A. S., Rajendran, D., & Theiler, S. (2012). Job stress, wellbeing, work-life balance and work-life conflict among Australian academics. Electronic Journal of Applied Psychology, 8(1), 25–37. https://doi.org/10.7790/ejap.v8i1.320.
Blackmore, J. (2014). “Wasting talent”? Gender and the problematics of academic disenchantment and disengagement with leadership. Higher Education Research and Development, 33(1), 86–99.
Bosanquet, A. (2017). Academic, woman, mother: Negotiating multiple subjectivities during early career. In R. Thwaites & A. Pressland (Eds.), Being an early career feminist academic (pp. 73–91). London: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Boyce, C. J., & Oswald, A. J. (2012). Do people become healthier after being promoted? Health Economics, 21(5), 580–596. https://doi.org/10.1002/hec.1734.
Brew, A. (2007). Evaluating academic development in a time of perplexity. International Journal for Academic Development, 12(2), 69–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440701604823.
Chubb, J., & Watermeyer, R. (2016). Artifice or integrity in the marketization of research impact? Investigating the moral economy of (pathways to) impact statements within research funding proposals in the UK and Australia. Studies in Higher Education, 5079(May), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2016.1144182.
Chubb, J., Watermeyer, R., & Wakeling, P. (2017). Fear and loathing in the academy? The role of emotion in response to an impact agenda in the UK and Australia. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(3), 555–568. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1288709.
Doherty, L., & Manfredi, S. (2006). Action research to develop work-life balance in a UK university. Women in Management Review, 21(3), 241–259. https://doi.org/10.1108/09649420610657416.
Grant, B. M. (2007). The mourning after: Academic development in a time of doubt. International Journal for Academic Development, 12(1), 35–43. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440701217303.
Halverson, C. (2003). From here to paternity: Why men are not taking paternity leave under the family and medical leave act. Wisconsin Women’s Law Journal, 18(2), 257–280.
Harré, N., Grant, B., Locke, K., & Sturm, S. (2017). The university as an infinite game: Revitalising activism in the academy. Australian Universities’ Review, 59(2), 5–13.
Khoo, T. (2014). Right back where we started from. In N. Lemon & S. Garvis (Eds.), Being “in and out” (pp. 57–67). Rotterdam: SensePublishers.
Khoo, T. (2016). A confession about working weekends. Research Whisperer, December 13. Retrieved from https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/2016/12/13/a-confession-about-working-weekends/.
Khoo, T. (2017). Do I have to move up the ladder? Research Whisperer, July 11. Retrieved from https://theresearchwhisperer.wordpress.com/2017/07/11/do-i-have-to-move-up-the-ladder.
Kinman, G. (2014). Doing more with less? Work and wellbeing in academics. Somatechnics, 4(2), 219–235. https://doi.org/10.3366/soma.2014.0129.
Kinman, G., & Jones, F. (2008). A life beyond work? Job demands, work-life balance, and wellbeing in UK Academics. Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 17(1–2), 41–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/10911350802165478.
Kligyte, G., & Barrie, S. (2014). Collegiality: Leading us into fantasy—The paradoxical resilience of collegiality in academic leadership. Higher Education Research and Development, 33(1), 157–169. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2013.864613.
Lindholm, J. (2004). Pathways to the professoriate: The role of self, others, and environment in shaping academic career aspirations. The Journal of Higher Education, 75(6), 603–635. https://doi.org/10.1353/jhe.2004.0035.
Lipton, B. (2017). Measures of success: Cruel optimism and the paradox of academic women’s participation in Australian higher education. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(3), 486–497. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1290053.
Lorenzi, L. (2017). A few weeks ago, I Tweeted about wanting academia to stop focusing exclusively on the exceptional outliers (esp. in grad programs). Twitter thread. https://twitter.com/empathywarrior/status/858732600608776192.
Manathunga, C. (2007). “Unhomely” academic developer identities: More post-colonial explorations. International Journal for Academic Development, 12(1), 25–34. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440701217287.
Marshall, K. (2008). Fathers’ use of paid parental leave. Perspectives on Labour and Income, 20(3), 5–14.
Morley, L. (2014). Lost leaders: Women in the global academy. Higher Education Research and Development, 33(1), 114–128.
Nielsen, M. W. (2017). Reasons for leaving the academy: A case study on the “opt out” phenomenon among younger female researchers. Gender, Work and Organization, 24(2), 134–155. https://doi.org/10.1111/gwao.12151.
O’Neill, M. (2014). The slow university: Work, time and well-being. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 15(3), art 14. Retrieved from http://discoversociety.org/2014/06/03/the-slow-university-work-time-and-well-being/.
Papadopoulos, A. (2017). The mismeasure of academic labour. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(3), 511–525. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1289156.
Pereira, M. M. (2016). Struggling within and beyond the performative university: Articulating activism and work in an “academia without walls”. Women’s Studies International Forum, 54, 100–110. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2015.06.008.
Peseta, T. (2007). Troubling our desires for research and writing within the academic development project. International Journal for Academic Development, 12(1), 15–23. https://doi.org/10.1080/13601440701217253.
Peseta, T., & Barrie, S. C. (2017). Stewardship as practice: ‘learning on-the-job’ for the academic development newcomer. In B. Leibowitz, V. Bozalek, & P. Kahn (Eds.), Theorising learning to teach in higher education (pp. 110–123). London, UK: Routledge.
Peseta, T., Barrie, S., & McLean, J. (2017). Academic life in the measured university: Pleasures, paradoxes and politics. Higher Education Research and Development, 36(3), 453–457. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2017.1293909.
Probert, B. (2005). “I just couldn’t fit it in”: Gender and unequal outcomes in academic careers. Gender, Work and Organization, 12(1), 50–72. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0432.2005.00262.x.
ResBaz (Producer). (2016, February 2) #ResBaz Conference 2016: Dr. Tseen Khoo Keystory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oo_3PbBYrBs.
Rudman, L. A., & Mescher, K. (2013). Penalizing men who request a family leave: Is flexibility stigma a femininity stigma? Journal of Social Issues, 69, 322–340. https://doi.org/10.1111/josi.12017.
Smyth, J. (2017). The toxic university: Zombie leadership, academic rock stars and neoliberal ideology. London: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Turner, S., Boswell, A., Harré, N., Sturm, S., & Locke, K. (2017). The playable university. Ephemera: Theory & Politics in Organization, 17(3), 673–690.
Williams, W. M., & Ceci, S. J. (2012). When scientists choose motherhood. American Scientist, 100(2), 138–145.
Wilsdon, J. (2016). The metric tide: Independent review of the role of metrics in research assessment and management. London: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Khoo, T. (2018). The Right Kind of Ambition. In: Lemon, N., McDonough, S. (eds) Mindfulness in the Academy. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2143-6_15
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2143-6_15
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-2142-9
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-2143-6
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)