Understanding and Supporting Early Career Academics’ Identity Work

Abstract

This interactive workshop will involve a group of facilitators who have been active in leading, facilitating or supporting early-career academic development programs in several countries. Together they will explore the tensions and challenges that early-career academics face from three perspectives. First, the nature of identity work, especially in the early stages of the development of a career, will be explicated. Second, the tensions associated with developing a coherent identity position spanning research, teaching and service will be explored. Third, the ways in which the reception of personal characteristics (such as gender and ethnicity) in the contexts of academic life impact on identity work will be considered. The three aims of the workshop are to (i) initiate a process of exploration and reflection that helps early-career academics to develop career resilience and coherence through identity work, (ii) support the transition of academics from doctoral study into the early stage of an academic career that feels authentic and meaningful, and (iii) encourage continued research in this area.