ABSTRACT

Academic work in universities is in flux with staff increasingly being confronted with multiple and conflicting roles, often leading to academics experiencing feelings of fragmentation and despair. Though much has been written about the changing nature of academic work and its effects on the academic workforce, there has been less exploration of how academics can be assisted in understanding and collaboratively resolving their difficulties. In this article the sequential and structured cycles of learning within three academic Change Laboratories are described and compared with reference to the main conflicts arising and their potential resolutions. The article then proposes that the Activity Theory-inspired Change Laboratory can assist academics in systematically learning about and potentially resolving difficulties in working life. The site of the study is the recently formed University of Technology sector in which problems may be further exacerbated as staff have to align their prior vocational identities with those of a more traditional university.

摘要

大学的学术工作不断变化，工作人员越来越多地面临多重和相互冲突的角色，这往往导致学术界感到支离破碎和绝望。尽管关于学术工作性质的变化及其对学术劳动力的影响已经写了很多，但对如何帮助学者理解和合作解决他们的困难的探索却很少。在本文中，三个学术变革实验室内的连续和结构化学习循环被描述和比较，并参考了出现的主要冲突及其潜在解决方案。然后，文章提出受活动理论启发的变革实验室可以帮助学者系统地了解并可能解决工作生活中的困难。