Rethinking Space and Academic Identity Construction in A Higher Education Context: An Application of Mouzelis’s Typology

Abstract

Higher education has progressively adopted a corporate identity where teaching, research and related practices have become commodified, and academics are expected to practice for institutional financial gain. Academics have to develop programmes that attract as many students as possible. Research, teaching and related practices should be done in a way that secures funding for the university and attract subsidies from government and the industrial sector. Many academics complain of limited space for these practices. This article proposes a framework that academics may use to reflect on the issue of space for the development of their academic identities. The framework is drawn from Mouzelis’s critique of structuration theory and highlights issues which may be considered as influential in academic practice as structure and agency.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2014.v5n14p298