This handbook explores feeling like an ‘imposter’ in higher education and what this can tell us about contemporary educational inequalities. Asking why imposter syndrome matters now, we investigate experiences of imposter syndrome across social locations, institutional positions, and intersecting inequalities. Our collection queries advice to fit-in with the university, and authors reflect on (not)belonging in, with and against educational institutions. The collection advances understandings of imposter syndrome as socially situated, in relation to entrenched inequalities and their recirculation in higher education. Chapters combine creative methods and linger on the figure of the ‘imposter’ - wary of both individualising and celebrating imposters as lucky, misfits, fraudsters, or failures, and critically interrogating the supposed universality of imposter syndrome.

This book uses belonging as a lens through which to understand women students’ experiences of studying for a doctorate, exploring the impact of academic cultures on career aspirations. Drawing on discourses of neoliberalism and academic identities, it makes a valuable contribution to ongoing discussions of gender inequality in the academy. Based on data gathered from women doctoral students in the UK, this book offers a contemporary, research-informed understanding of the doctorate as an inherently gendered experience, which has implications for individuals, academic institutions, and for the future of the academic sector. The book will be of interest to academics working in the area of doctoral education, doctoral supervisors and those involved in doctoral student support, including researcher developers and individuals working in graduate schools, as well as doctoral students themselves.

Creating Culturally Affirming and Meaningful Assignments offers principles, strategies, and examples to aid in the development of inclusive college coursework in which all students feel seen and valued. This resource prepares instructors to proactively consider ways to honor and engage with students’ varied identities and lived experiences through assignments. Chapters cover the course design process, methods on getting to know your students, assignment options beyond the exam, and more. Reflection questions at the end of each chapter serve as a springboard for faculty and leadership conversations on equitable and inclusive teaching practices, while the appendix features 20 example assignments sourced from various higher education disciplines. An accessible, practical read, this guidebook is for any higher education instructor who wants to reimagine their assignments to center and celebrate students’ varied cultural backgrounds and experiences.

This book provides an in-depth qualitative report on casualised academic staff in the UK, mapping shared experiences and strategies for resistance. Bringing together testimonial data spanning seven years, it offers evidence of how precarious labour conditions have persisted, shifted and intensified. The book will be a valuable resource for students and scholars in the fields of education, human resources management, labour studies and sociology, as well as trade unionists and university policymakers.

A collection of autoethnographies written by academics who self-define as being from a working class heritage. Each one is an account of their lives, their experiences, and their journeys into becoming a higher education professional, in an industry still steeped in elitism.

This collection brings together perspectives from early-career LGBTQ+ scholars as they navigate the scholarly publishing landscape, highlighting their experiences and challenges in providing greater representation within the academic community and existing scholarship. The volume reflects on the ways in which scholarly output is intricately linked with scholarly identity and the challenges LGBTQ+ scholars face when their scholarly and gender and sexual identities can often seem to be in conflict. The book showcases perspectives from doctoral students and early-career scholars from around the world working across different disciplines, supported by case studies, autoethnographic narratives, and discourse analysis, to explore key issues facing those who identify as LGBTQ+ or who wish to research and publish on topics relating to gender and sexual identity. These include negotiating positionality, the role of writing styles in identity construction for queer scholars, the ways in which publishing gatekeepers perpetuate heteronormativity, and the part support networks play for researchers. The book gives voice to a wider range of scholars towards creating a more inclusive publishing environment and will be of interest to students and researchers who identify as LGBTQ+ and those working in such fields as applied linguistics, English for academic purposes, queer theory, and gender studies.

A key distinction between an education doctorate, or Ed.D., and other doctorates in the field of education is the development of scholar practitioners armed with knowledge and skills to successfully lead change in their profession. Critical inquiry is one such skill, increasingly taught in many Ed.D. programs in some form of applied research methodology. Teaching Critical Inquiry and Applied Research: Moving Beyond Traditional Methods gathers insights from Ed.D. faculty regarding how the teaching of applied research occurs to develop scholar practitioners prepared to bring change to their respective professional fields. The 13 chapters provide a broad coverage of related topics, which includes advocacy and leadership through research, innovative features of methods courses, and methodology-focused program redesign. Each chapter includes strategies and recommendations for others interested in implementing something similar in their courses and programs. This book also captures student voices, in the form of vignettes written by students within each chapter, to illustrate the powerful impact of learning related to critical inquiry and applied research. Teaching Critical Inquiry and Applied Research is an excellent text for classrooms devoted to critical research, critical pedagogy, and other courses.

In this book, first-hand accounts from academics and practitioners explore the concept of "professional identity development" in the context of higher education and provide guidance to develop and enhance professionalism. The Development of Professional Identity in Higher Education presents a new understanding of identity development. Highlighting the importance of building positive identities in the development of a professional career, it argues for a reframing of the way academics think of themselves, suggesting the role of "practitioner" as one in which there is a continuous need to develop their professionalism as it connects to their daily practices and different identities. With contributions from a range of international authors, it demonstrates how professional development can change our beliefs and perceptions of the profession itself, whether it be through on-the-job instruction aimed at making teachers/researchers better, or through "self-learning" whereby teachers and researchers learn to develop and enhance their teaching and research competency through daily activities and self-analysis. This book will be of great interest to researchers and graduate and postgraduate students in teacher education and professional development.

This collection explores how autoethnography is made. Contributors from sociology, education, counselling, the visual arts, textiles, drama, music, and museum curation uncover and reflect on the processes and practices they engage in as they craft their autoethnographic artefacts. Each chapter explores a different material or media, together creating a rich and stimulating set of demonstrations, with the focus firmly on the practical accomplishment of texts/artefacts. Theoretically, this book seeks to rectify the hierarchical separation of art and craft and of intellectual and practical cultural production, by collapsing distinctions between knowing and making. In relation to connections between personal experience and wider social and cultural phenomena, contributors address a variety of topics such as social class, family relationships and intergenerational transmission, loss, longing and grief, the neoliberal university, gender, sexuality, colonialism, race/ism, national identity, digital identities, indigenous ways of knowing/making and how these are ‘storied’, curated and presented to the public, and our relationship with the natural world. Contributors also offer insights into how the ‘crafting space’ is itself one of intellectual inquiry, debate, and reflection. This is a core text for readers from both traditional and practice-based disciplines undertaking qualitative research methods/autoethnographic inquiry courses, as well as community-based practitioners and students. Readers interested in creative practice, practitioner-research and arts-based research in the social sciences and humanities will also benefit from this book.