Early career academics’ identity development in a changing era: Challenges, strategies, and management

Introduction

We welcome submissions for this special collection of articles that explore development of academic identity among early career academics in or across higher education systems worldwide. The early career phase is critical in developing academic identity. Conceptually, identity is "a continuing sense of self through a whole human life, in which there may have been significant, even dramatic, changes, but the past, present, and future are integrally linked" (Henkel, 2012, p. 156). Academic identity, a subset of self-identity, can be described as a professional identity and shares common traits with it (Henkel, 2000). Those in the early career phase include doctoral and postdoctoral researchers who aspire to work in higher education in a longer term and academics who are working as lecturers/assistant professors (or other equivalent roles). 

The development of academic identity among early career academics may be influenced by a confluence of disciplinary, institutional, and societal factors (Dai & Hardy, 2023; Henkel, 2005; McAlpine et al., 2009). Early career academics often encounter a variety of challenges, including managing the competing demands and expectations of their academic roles. They may experience inherent tensions: within themselves, for example, constant self-negotiation between who they want to be and who are ‘currently being’ to cope with the professional odds; between individuals’ professional aspirations and their institutional requirements; and with the societal and neoliberal demands. 
      
We welcome contributions that centrally address, but are not limited to, the following high-level questions: 

1. How do early career academics address the challenges they face in their academic fields?
2. How do external factors such as governmental, institutional, and disciplinary influence the academic identity of early career academics?
3. How do social-cultural contexts influence the academic identity development of early career academics within the academic community?

We are open to submissions that offer theoretical and/or empirical insights to advance understanding of the issues on academic identity development. We hope that these collective insights will support early career academics’ process of identity development and inform university management to formulate and implement more effective support policies and structures for this group of academics in a rapid changing academic landscape.  

List of topic areas

• Challenges in academic identity development;
• Role of contextual factors (social context, governmental, institutional, disciplinary) in shaping academic identity;
• Impact of neoliberalism and related issues;
• Academic identity development in transnational context;
• Management and governance in academic identity development

Submissions Information

Submissions are made using ScholarOne Manuscripts. Registration and access are available here.

Author guidelines must be strictly followed.

Authors should select (from the drop-down menu) the special issue title at the appropriate step in the submission process, i.e. in response to "Please select the issue you are submitting to". 

Submitted articles must not have been previously published, nor should they be under consideration for publication anywhere else, while under review for this journal.

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Key deadlines

Opening date for manuscripts submissions: 1st November, 2024

Closing date for manuscripts submission: 1st April, 2025