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The Role of Academic Inbreeding in Building Institutional and Research Habitus: A Case Study from Turkey

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Abstract

Academic inbreeding in higher education institutions is critical in terms of forming institutional and research habitus. In the meantime, it has a potential of regulating the relations of recognition. This article aims to understand how academic inbreeding practices play a key role in generating dispositions of institutional and research habitus and recognition gaps based on the data collected through semi-structured interviews of the selected faculty members from a higher education institution in Turkey and examination of the annual strategic planning reports of the university and the project office. Content analysis was employed to generate the themes and categories emerged from the qualitative data. Three main themes emerged as institutional habitus, research habitus, and the relations of recognition. The findings revealed that academic inbreeding is an interwoven asset of the institutional habitus, while it is also one of the critical determinants of research habitus and the relations of recognition. The findings of the study expected to contribute to the literature by employing different theoretical lenses. Further research can be conducted in multiple sites to yield more transferable conclusions considering the variables related to institutional, research habitus, and relations of recognition.

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Acknowledgements

This study has been generously supported by the Middle East Technical University Scientific Research Projects Fund (Grant Number BAP-08-11-2016-074).

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  1. Department of Educational Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    Duygun Gokturk & Ozlem Yildirim-Tasti

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  1. Duygun Gokturk
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  2. Ozlem Yildirim-Tasti
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Correspondence to Duygun Gokturk.

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Gokturk, D., Yildirim-Tasti, O. The Role of Academic Inbreeding in Building Institutional and Research Habitus: A Case Study from Turkey. High Educ Policy 35, 178–198 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41307-020-00201-1

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