Border Country
A Tweet asking which universities were currently doing the best research about higher education itself led to a metaphorical head scratch – I could name individuals aplenty (thinking Ronald Barnett, the philosopher, theorist and analyst of higher education; Celia Whitchurch on academic and professional identities in higher education; the late Harold Silver on the history of education and the role of education policy in social change; the late Sir David Watson, who wrote on more or less anything and everything higher education – and then organisations such as BERA, the British Educational Research Association although that’s all educational research, not just higher education – and some university departments such as Bristol’s Centre for Higher Education Transformation).
Which led to a somewhat bigger metaphorical head scratch - - what even is research about higher education? Is it people, policies, practices, places? What might its reach be? Individuals or institutions, both? For individuals, would it just be, say, educational developers? Or would it be them and their work, which might cover their interventions, in say, learning outcomes, curricula and assessment – so, is it about all of that, too? What about Professors of Higher Education, who might focus on international higher education or the educational role of higher education or higher education practices?
And then the metaphorical head scratch became a meta-metaphorical one; what about research on the higher education ‘invisibles’ such as staff on professional services contracts, for example, who are not eligible for inclusion in the Research Excellence Framework, or the fact that HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) only records AdvanceHE recognition for academic staff so staff not on academic contracts cease to exist as those with PF/SFHEA are excluded from the institutional count.
This is not a new question, by any means – 1996 saw Rob Cuthbert’s introduction to Working in Higher Education[i] asking ‘How should we try to comprehend ‘working in HE’?” and the book includes a chapter on professors and professionals, mulling over what was yet to be called the third spacer, noting some of the angst associated with recognition (disparities in grading and recognition vis a vis academic staff), and shifting boundaries (addressed within McIntosh, E. and Nutt, D. (2022) The impact of the integrated practitioner in higher education: Studies in third space professionalism. London: Routledge). It does, however, help with the head scratching above – there is the worker, the work, and the work context – and it isn’t really possible to separate one from the others. [ii]
A few years later, Barnett in Realizing the University[iii], states ‘University life has to become nomadic, where identities and purposes are lived out in border country’ reflecting Cuthbert’s sense of the worker (identity), work (purpose) and context (the border country). Some 25+ years later, we are still contemplating such – and - contemplating who is contemplating. Do we need research about the research? Do we need to join together a network of researchers, and/or universities with research centres (such as Lancaster University’s Centre for Higher Education Research and Evaluation or the SRHE, Society for Research into Higher Education)?
Barnett also argues that in the age of supercomplexity the university needs a framework for uncertainty. There is no single or simple answer; Barnett’s supercomplexity needs new solutions. New solutions need new thinking. Third spacers inhabit (or dance in[iv]) this border country with the knowledge, skills and experience to engage constructively with supercomplexity. We can create method to the madness, through both “belonging” and “not belonging” to the academic space – but, we’re more or less invisible – within our own institutions and the sector itself. Universities tend toward the binary – academic or not academic – but supercomplexity is not binary; therefore, we must recognise professions as not binary. But, before that, we need to recognise third spacers – and perhaps, a critical mass of us as visible advocates evidenced through research and networks, might just help?
[i] Cuthbert, R (Ed) (1996) Working in Higher Education. Buckingham: Open University Press.
[ii] Clifton, J. (2023) What if there were 42 million at the border?, Gallup.com. Gallup. Available at: https://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/246563/million-border.aspx (Accessed: April 12, 2023).
[iii] Barnett, R. (2011) Realizing the university in an age of supercomplexity. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.
[iv]Nutt, D and McIntosh, E (2022) https://thesedablog.wordpress.com/2022/03/31/dancing-in-the-boundary-lands-through-interesting-times-educational-development-in-the-third-space/ thesedablog (Accessed 23 April 2023)
