Working conditions in Argentina´s academia: different career paths and segmentation of the profession

MARQUINA, MÓNICA; MENDONÇA, MARIANA; REZNIK, NICOLÁS

Aveiro

Conferencia; APIKS Conference: General work situation and working conditions in academia; 2022

Universidade de Aveiro

Since the mid-twentieth century higher education systems worldwide have gone through huge transformations. Universities had to respond to the challenge of massification on all fronts. In particular, when it comes to the academic profession, it is possible to observe enormous changes in the last decades. The increase in the number of students, the changes in the governance and management models (Trow, 1994; Teelken, 2012; Lei?ytė et al, 2020; Deem, 1998; Santiago & Carvalho, 2012; Amaral, Bleiklie, & Musselin, 2008; Amaral, Jones, & Karseth, 2002; Santiago, Carvalho, & Cardoso, 2015), the emergence of new teaching modes, the intensity of research, performativity and accountability pressures impact directly on academic work, and consequently, in their academic working conditions (Altbach, 1975; Teichler & Bracht, 2006; Teichler, & Höhle, 2013; Brante, 2011; Finkelstein, 2010; Finkelstein & Jones, 2019; Carvalho, 2017).Although universities everywhere share common roots and most of them have evolved into modern institutions with the same three missions -teaching, research and public service-, they present different patterns of organization and structure (Altbach, 2007,159?179). As Altbach states, while academics around the world teach and perform research and management tasks, working conditions vary greatly from country to country. Despite the fact that the professoriate has increased enormously in recent decades, the rate is still far behind the number of postsecondary enrollments. This, in turn, led to a deterioration of working conditions (Altbach, 2007,159?179).In this abstract we aim to analyze the changes that the professoriate has undergone in Argentina in the last decades. The main goal is to characterize the professoriate in national universities in order to establish the current state and evolution of the segmetation and heterogeneity of the academic workforce. We will focus on different aspects related to their working conditions. To do this we have relied on data from the Academic Profession in the Knowledge-Based Society (APIKS) survey.