PROFESSIONAL IDENTITY AND THE RESTRUCTURING OF HIGHER-EDUCATION

Higher education has undergone immense changes over the last 30 years. These changes, involving the fragmentation of the academic workplace together with increased differentials between individuals in respect o f status and autonomy, have had a profound effect on the role of unive rsity teachers and on their sense of professional identity. Neverthele ss, university teachers have important insights to bring to the debate on higher education. This paper sets our to present some of those ins ights. The analysis is based on evidence drawn from interviews conduct ed with higher education lecturers in two different institutions: an ' old' and a 'new' university. The interviewees' understanding of what m akes for good practice-and what institutional conditions are necessary for such practice to flourish-are examined and the implications of th at understanding discussed. Any effective restructuring of higher educ ation must, it is argued, take on board this professional perspective and, in so doing, rethink the relation between teaching and research a nd between the various traditions and styles of research.