The Academic Profession in England: Still stratified after all these years?

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the findings from the initial analysis of the responses to a survey of nearly 1,700 academics from a wide range of higher education institutions (HEIs) throughout the UK which was carried out by the Centre for Higher Education Research and Information (CHERI) at The Open University. It includes comparisons with findings from the original survey of the academic profession in England in 1992 as part of the First International Survey of the Academic Profession (Fulton, 1996). Therefore, it concentrates on the responses to the 2007 survey from those employed in English HEIs. The 2007 questionnaire repeated 13 items included in the earlier survey. The report of the 1992 survey sought to investigate institutional diversity and differentiation on the eve of the abolition of the binary divide in the UK between universities on the one hand and polytechnics and major colleges of higher education on the other. As such, this initial report of – what amounts to a fraction of – the UK 2007 survey findings, is of an analysis by institutional type utilising three categories: Pre-1992 Universities, Post-1992 Universities (i.e. Polytechnics at the time of the 1992 survey), and Post-2004 Universities and HE Colleges. These analytical categories are also applied to the responses to a selection of other questions in the survey not included in the 1992 instrument