Academic profession: The dynamics of emerging countries

MARQUINA ,MÓNICA; MARIELA FERREIRO

The relevance of the academic profession

Springer

Lugar: Dordrecht; Año: 2014;

It is not easy to find clear specific characteristics of the academic profession in emerging countries because the history of the systems and the local contexts that makes for each country a specific case. However, the academic profession in emerging countries can be differentiated from those in the industrialised mature nations because of common trends related to the dependence on the centre. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze variations of internal fragmentation in the academic profession of emerging countries compared to mature ones. Just as in mature countries the academic profession is mostly part of a global academic community, we will analyze the academic professions of six emerging countries recognizing differences between a group of scholars connected with international standards and therefore part of the global academic community, and a more local group. We assume that in each country is possible to recognize the existence of an academic sector that we called ?elite? that has a considerable distance from the rest of academics in terms of better working conditions, productivity and perceptions of their profession. However, we will try to demonstrate that this distance is significantly lower in mature countries and this would be, therefore, the main feature that brings together emerging countries analyzed in terms of their academic professions. This chapter is organized in four parts. First, we will present a background that explains the main features of the higher education systems and the academic professions in each of the six selected countries. Second, we present the methodology applied to analyze data from CAP survey regarding some variables and dimensions. Third, we show results from some aspects of the academic profession in order to validate our hypothesis. Finally, we suggest some conclusions that should continue been contrasted in further research.