academics | Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education

With continued cutbacks at universities, it is becoming more and more difficult for newly graduated students to secure an academic position at a university. Is a career as an academic the only/best choice? A new report suggests a PhD can open many doors and during doctoral studies candidates should be exploring many option and acquiring a range of skills. The League of European Research Universities published an “advice paper” on Good Practice Elements in Doctoral Training. http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=2014020617152794

Some of the key findings of the report are:
·      PhDs are increasingly drivers of their own professional development; and the training model in which the PhD candidate is heavily dependent on one supervisor is no longer robust.
·      over and over again it demonstrates that some of the most research-intensive universities in Europe are prioritising transferable skills, which are now being built into training programmes for doctoral candidates and, most frequently it seems, as elective course options and often in collaboration with other organisations.
·      the introduction presents 29 such transferable competencies like ‘working in teams’, ‘persisting in achieving long-term goals’ and ‘understanding the working of a specific high-level research-intensive environment’.

As a doctoral supervisor, one of the first things I (Clare) want to know from my students is what do they want to do when they complete their doctorate. I want them to be honest which is often difficult because the prevailing norm in universities is that doctoral candidates should want to be academics. Some of my former doctoral students did not want to be academics but were nervous to reveal their intentions. If I am going to support my students fully I want to know what they hope the doctoral studies will lead to. I can report some of my students who did not want to be academics are happily employed in a range of positions: research officer in a school district, classroom teacher, and psycho-educational consultant. During their doctoral studies I tried ensure they are set-up to get a particular position (e.g., present at specific types of conferences). A PhD in education should open many doors. It is important for us as supervisors to know there are many doors all of which can lead to a fruitful career.

Yiola’s post yesterday commented on the positive impact of a children’s book. Today I (Clare) want to talk about negative images in children’s books. I came across Melissa Terras’ fabulous research on how academics are illustrated in pictures books. Oh goodness! Academics are typically presented in a very unflattering light (old, male, a bit mad). These stereotypes do damage to our reputation with the general public and are definitely not a positive image we want to present to children. Below are some of the findings from her extensive research which I found to be frightening and discouraging. Check out Melissa’s blog for the entire article: http://melissaterras.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/male-mad-and-muddleheaded-academics-in.html

What are academics in children’s books like?

The 108 academics found consist of 76 Professors, 21 Academic Doctors, 2 Students, 2 Lecturers, 1 Assistant Professor, 1 Child, 1 Astronomer, 1 Geographer, 1 Medical Doctor who undertakes research, 1 researcher, and 1 lab assistant. In general, the Academic Doctors tend to be crazy mad evil egotists (“It’s Dr Frankensteiner – the maddest mad scientist on mercury!”), whilst the Professors tend to be kindly, but baffled, obsessive egg-heads who dont quite function normally.
The academics are mostly (old, white) males. Out of the 108 found, only 9 are female: 90% of the identified academics are male, 8% are female, and 2% have no identifiable gender (there are therefore much fewer women in this cohort than in reality, where it is estimated that one third of senior research posts are occupied by women). They are also nearly all caucasian: only two of those identified are people of colour: one Professor, and one child who is so smart he is called The Prof: both are male: this is scarily close to the recent statistic that only 0.4% of the UK professoriat are black. 43% of those found in this corpus are are elderly men, 33% are middle aged (comprising of 27% male and 6% female, there are no elderly female professors, as they are all middle age or younger). The women are so lacking that the denoument of one whodunnit/ solve the mystery/ choose your own adventure book for slightly older children is that the professor they have been talking about was actually a woman, and you didn’t see that coming, did you? Ha!
Most of the identified academics work in science, engineering and technology subjects. 31% work in some area of generic “science”, 10% work in biology, a few in maths, paleontology, geography, and zoology, and lone academics in rocket science, veterinary science, astronomy, computing, medical research and oceanography.
The names given to the academics are telling, with the majority being less than complimentary: Professor Dinglebat, Professor P. Brain, Professor Blabbermouth, Professor Bumblebrain, Professor Muddlehead, Professor Hogwash, Professor Bumble, Professor Dumkopf, Professor Nutter, and two different Professor Potts. There is the odd professor with a name that alludes to intelligence: Professor I.Q, Professor Inkling, Professor Wiseman, but those are in the minority.
Academics are routinely shown as individuals obsessed with one topic who are either baffled and harmless and ineffectual, or malicious, vindictive and psychotic, and although these can be affectionate sketches (“bless! look at the clueless/psychopathic genius!”) academics routinely come across as out of touch wierdos – and what is that teaching kids about universities? In this age of proving academic “impact”, it might be not so bad for us to be able to show we were relevant to society? That there is more to academia than science? Or for the kids books I show my kids to have more positive and integrated representations of professors and academics? Perhaps this is not the role of kids books though, and I should just be telling my kids my own tales of academic derring-do.