Radical Teacher (Mar 2020)

Donning the ‘Slow Professor’: A Feminist Action Research Project

  • Sara Ashencaen Crabtree,
  • Ann Hemingway,
  • Sue Sudbury,
  • Anne Quinney,
  • Maggie Hutchings,
  • Luciana Esteves,
  • Shelley Thompson,
  • Helen Jacey,
  • Anita Diaz,
  • Peri Bradley,
  • Jenny Hall,
  • Michele Board,
  • Anna Feigenbaum,
  • Lorraine Brown,
  • Vanessa Heaslip,
  • Liz Norton

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2020.647
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 116

Abstract

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Corporatization of Higher Education has introduced new performance measurements as well as an acceleration of academic tasks creating working environments characterised by speed, pressure and stress. This paper discusses findings from a qualitative, feminist participatory action research (PAR) study undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of women academics at a modern, corporate university in England. The study illuminates how corporatized HE erodes faculty autonomy, degrades learning environments, damages professional satisfaction and health. Strategies for resistance and liberation developed through the PAR process are discussed. Key words: slow professor, corporatized academy, Higher Education.