Page 208 - Through the gate of the neoliberal academy • Herschberg
P. 208

206 ENGLISH SUMMARY
Since mid-1980, Western higher education institutions (HEIs) moved towards mass higher education, greater managerial control and increased monitoring and regulation of the labour of academics. Furthermore, precarious employment in HEIs increased, meaning that academics are more often employed on part-time, hourly paid, and temporary contracts, particularly academics at the beginning of their career (early- career researchers). An increase of competitive temporary funding from national and international research councils and the private sector has accelerated the growth of temporary contracts even more. This generates a strong competition for permanent academic positions.
When looking at temporary positions in Western HEIs, a gendered pattern can be observed, meaning that women (early-career) academics are disproportionally employed on temporary positions compared to men. Yet, not only gender inequality but also for example inequalities based on nationality, ethnicity, and class characterize academia and academic processes. Two organisational processes that play a role in the production and perpetuation of inequalities are recruitment and selection, as they form the access to or entrance into academic positions. Hitherto, most studies on academic recruitment and selection examine higher positions in the academic hierarchy, such as full professorships. I consider it important to focus on early- career researchers in these studies because hiring decisions at the early stages of the academic career determine who are included or excluded from academic careers and thus who will be the future researchers that shape the direction of research.
In this dissertation, I study postdoc positions and tenure-track assistant professorships. These are the first positions after completing a PhD and before obtaining a more stable, permanent position in academia. Both positions are precarious in nature and for both positions senior researchers (gatekeepers) are responsible for recruitment and selection of candidates. I aim to achieve a better understanding on how inequalities come to the fore in the recruitment and selection of early-career researchers and in particular how hiring committee members construct inequalities in the recruitment and selection process. In my research, I use the concept of practices to refer to the routine actions and perceptions of people shaped in interaction with each other. In short, it is about what people say and do. To study practices, the focus needs to be on interactions, processes, and social practices and therefore I chose to use a qualitative comparative multiple-case study design. In various chapters in my dissertation I compare different hiring procedures in two academic disciplines (social sciences and natural sciences), and multiple countries (Belgium, Iceland, Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands). I have analysed 32 job descriptions, 30 appointment reports, and various organisational documents,































































































   206   207   208   209   210