Abstract
Female social work early career academics (ECAs) face many challenges within a neoliberal university context. The tension between balancing the social justice mission of the profession against the consumer model of higher education is conflicting and contributes to feelings of isolation and alienation. This article documents a group of female ECAs experiences by drawing on critical, post-modern and feminist knowledge traditions. The qualitative methodology used was collective autoethnography and critical reflection where the group documented and collectively analysed individual experiences of teaching social work education as female ECAs. The purpose of collating these experiences was to explore the emancipatory capacity of female agency as well as embodying what it is to be a female ECA. Vignettes were thematically examined in a three-part process including (1) reading and reviewing data; (2) categorising and group data and (3) finding themes and connecting these to the original data (Chang et al., 2016). Analysis of the vignettes highlighted the tensions of working as female social justice educators within a neoliberal university causing feelings of oppression and discomfort. In finding one another, sharing and writing stories as well as a collective response this challenged the masculinist model which has been the norm within neoliberal universities. Female led support strategies coupled with the utilisation of feminist methodologies contributes to the emergence of a new, feminist and collectively safer academic culture.
The position of female early career academics (ECAs) can be tenuous and demanding within neoliberal universities. For social work (SW) academics, the social justice mission of the profession requires us to engage students in transformative learning experiences. Balancing the expectations of SW with the consumer model of higher education, creates conflicting emotions leading to a sense of alienation. This article documents the emancipatory capacity of collaborative ethnography through an examination our experiences as female ECAs. In the Australian context, ECAs are defined as academics who have been awarded their PhD in the past 5 years (Bosanquet et al., 2015; Christian et al., 2021). As at the point of writing, this definition applied to all authors.
Social work education aims to provide students with the skills and knowledge of the profession grounded with a mission for social justice (Australian Association of Social Workers (AASW), 2020). However, this can be challenging in a neoliberal climate where education is marketed as a commodity for the student consumer (Burns, 2018). As SW educators we are aware that our role is not limited to imparting knowledge but enabling students to think critically about how to advance the profession’s social change mission (Morley, 2016). However, we often feel that some students have an expectation that we will impart knowledge that enables them to simply pass assessment, rather than developing comprehensive knowledge for SW practice. These perceived student expectations alongside requirements from the university to maintain enrolments and meet the needs of a diverse international cohort, as well as engaging students in learning about difficult and personally sensitive topics (Saxton et al., 2021), often leave us feeling exhausted and disillusioned.
This article explores the experience of six, female ECAs across four universities and our discomfort navigating the roles and expectations of the SW profession within the neoliberal Australian context. Using a process of collaborative autoethnography, we examine a series of events that have occurred during our teaching. Our engagement with collaborative autoethnography facilitated space for a counternarrative in conversations about what it is to be critical SW educators. As female ECAs, this process has provided a safe environment for sharing our experiences through collective response. By sharing our collective experience, the authors felt more able and comfortable to question the system of power and inequality based on hegemonic masculinity we experience with the university (Connell, 1987). It is our experience that hegemonic masculinity is displayed within the hierarchy, systems and processes used with the neoliberal university conceptualise gender as a mechanism to enforce sexism and outdated notions of gender with our professional lives (Connell, 1987).
The implication of this research shows the importance of collective practices for safety and survival of female ECAs. This article contributes to emerging and sustained research by critical and feminist scholars about the possibilities of collaborative qualitative research processes (Morley and Dunstan, 2013; Naples, 2003; Saxton et al., 2021). The stressors of providing quality SW education within a neoliberal environment impact not only ECA’s but the wider SW sector, potentially leading to decreased practitioner wellbeing and service delivery outcomes. We fear favouring of less rigorous or critical approaches could lead to less transformational practice with vulnerable people and communities. Within this paper we explore the power of collective resistance which seeks to not only increase our feelings of individual fairness but to ultimately lead to transformative, quality pedagogy and research. We surmise that in meeting, reflecting and writing about the neoliberal academy we are better positioned as educators assist in producing emancipatory SW graduates.
Background
Critical social work and the neoliberal university
The International Federation of Social Workers (2014) defines SW as: ‘work(ing) in communities with people finding positive ways forward in the challenges they face in their lives. They help people build the kind of environments in which they want to live, through co-determination, co-production and social responsibility’.
Central to SW education are the values of human rights and social justice (Steen et al., 2017). Social work graduates are expected to embody these values throughout the helping process in a range of contexts (Harms, 2015). Traditional approaches to SW remain popular within SW education such as teaching students how to engage, assess, intervene and plan processes of change with clients (Hepworth, 2011). Many graduates will use these skills to engage in case work, case management, groupwork, community development, policy writing and activism (Hepworth, 2011; Morley et al., 2014).
The focus on the development of skills representing more critical or theoretical approaches continues to be an area of debate (Morley, 2016). Critical SW is defined as ‘a progressive view of SW that questions and challenges the harmful divisions, unequal power relations, injustices and social disadvantages that characterise our society’. (Morley et al., 2014, p.1) Due to the unique person-in-environment focus of SW, procedural approaches used in other allied health professions may not meet needs of SW clients (Harms, 2015). A focus on technical, procedural processes can be considered reductionist, framing the client as a set of problems rather than a person with rights, desires and choices (Morley et al., 2014). A focus on task-oriented vocational skills rather than enquiry-based learning has become a trend within contemporary SW education, as it aligns with the profit-making demands of many universities (Morley, 2016).
Social work education exists within the broader higher education environment that is increasingly driven internationally by neoliberal agendas (Burns, 2018; Giroux, 2014). Social work practice and education have increasingly justified and used business models which promote capitalism, a process known as neoliberalism (Morley et al., 2019). Rather than focusing on education as a form of social capital which can address injustice and oppression, universities rely on managerialist processes to ensure staff meet profit making targets (Giroux, 2014; Morley, 2016). This leads to students believing they are buying a product that will help them become employed as social workers, leading to increased emphasis on students’ development of vocational skills over that of critical thinking, analysis and reflection (Morley, 2016). This puts students at risk of losing SW’s unique perspective in understanding the intersectionality between dominant discourse, socio-political structures and lived experience (Morley et al., 2019).
Female, early career researchers and the neoliberal university
Despite the social justice mission of SW education, the positioning of these courses within tertiary institutions remains problematic. Emphasis on student retention and increased fees has facilitated consumer models of education where students have become consumers of higher education (Giroux, 2014). Presumptions which link obtaining and retaining students as imperative for economic viability has resulted in academics being inundated with anonymous student surveys (Fan et al., 2019). Evidence suggests that when undertaking these surveys students routinely score women and teachers with non-English speaking backgrounds lower compared to their white, male counterparts (Fan et al., 2019). This may impact female ECAs job satisfaction, performance reviews and promotion opportunities (Tynan and Garbett, 2007).
Within this unequal neoliberal business model, female ECAs may experience limited mentoring and encouragement (Tynan and Garbett, 2007). Many female ECAs find it difficult to commence research, a situation often exacerbated due to heavy teaching and administrative workloads, symptomatic of the neoliberal university (Lipton, 2017; Tynan and Garbett, 2007). Precarity is also an issue within academia, with over 60% of teaching staff in Australian universities employed on a casual basis (May, 2011). Female academics are more likely to work casual and part time hours due to family responsibilities (Broadbent et al., 2017). Caring responsibilities result in a lack of geographical mobility, impacting female ECAs ability to secure permanent or senior roles (Broadbent et al., 2017). Arguably, the neoliberal university measures ECA achievement based on male norms leading to many women’s attainments being rendered invisible (Lipton, 2017).
Despite the development of feminist understandings and critiques (Gannon et al., 2015; Lipton and Mackinlay, 2017), female ECAs may also find themselves perpetuating masculinist goals of competitiveness and individualism (Lipton, 2017; Tynan and Garbett, 2007). The commodification of higher education has seen academics experiencing high levels of anxiety in meeting the needs of the university (Berg et al., 2016). For female ECAs this context leads to experience of discomfort and disconnection, which are encapsulated as embodied processes. As feminist ECAs we have decided to reject masculinist notions by developing our own way of organising, supporting and resisting the patriarchal culture of universities. We believe this also allows us to resist neoliberal ways of structuring SW courses, allowing us to align with the emancipatory goals of the profession. This study contributes to existing literature about female SW ECAs experiences of working in neoliberal higher educational institutions and its impact on social work.
Methodology
Drawing from critical, post-modern and feminist traditions, we engaged in a process of collaborative autoethnography to document specific vignettes of teaching SW as female ECAs within with a neoliberal university context. Autoethnography itself requires a brief definition to begin as it is utilised as a powerful medium for qualitative research as it can push the researcher (as well as the reader) to engage the self in a deep, thoughtful reflexive process (Adams et al., 2014). It is considered a valuable research tool that stems directly from the researched person themselves removing the methodological and ethical challenges that come with interpretational error (Lapadat, 2017). Butz and Besio (2009) refer to it as “identity work” (p. 1660) as it is the exercise of consciously and introspectively looking at the self and observing the self as a social phenomenon. The result of engaging in such a deeply self-reflective and narrative process has the power to uncover subjective cultural and political beliefs, values and ideas in the name of social justice (Adams et al., 2014; Chang et al., 2016; Ellis and Bochner, 2006; Stanley, 2020). However, there have been questions about the robustness of the autoethnography as it only represents a single participant view and does not support relational analyses (Lapadat, 2017). As a solution to this, several authors suggest collaborative ethnography as a way to solve the ethical issues which come with solo participant autoethnographic studies as it allows the narration of shared ethnographic experiences (Chang et al., 2016; Denzin, 2014; Lapadat, 2017).
Collaborative autoethnography is a multivocal qualitative research method where a community of researchers collect autobiographical materials to then collate, analyse and interpret it as sociocultural phenomenon (Lapadat, 2017). The method allows group members the opportunity to merge stories for the purpose of comparing and contrasting both similarities as well as divergences of their autobiographical experiences within a shared sociocultural context (Chang et al., 2016). Chang et al., (2016) state that collaborative autoethnography is a powerful methodology for the exploration of group culture through the self-reflexive and collective examination of the experience of ‘self’ within that culture. Collaborative autoethnography can involve the contribution of individual work which is analysed by the group or the combination of multiple voices to interrogate the layers and overlap of several shared narratives (Cruz et al., 2020). Autoethnographic vignettes are one technique that has been used in both SW, ethnographic and feminist research to document lived experience (Lipton and Mackinlay, 2017; Naples, 2003; Stanley, 2020; Witkin, 2014). This rich tradition was followed within this study with individuals providing vignettes which were then analysed by the group.
Although the methodological processes employed in this article are reflective of feminist research principles, the formation of the writing group was a result of a more organic response to our shared experiences of alienation as female ECAs. The group was formed in 2019 and incorporated a range of female ECAs in SW, in Southeast Queensland Australia. At the time of forming, the group consisted of both tenured and untenured academics. Four of the participants had completed their PhD and two were in their final stages. The members of the group meet either as PhD students or within workplaces. Originally the group was formed with a vision to meet monthly and to support, read, edit and comment on each other’s research. However, over time as trust and bonds formed between members, we found ourselves engaged in debates about how to best meet the needs of the SW profession, students and our employers. All members of the group felt distinctly uncomfortable in meeting the values of the profession whilst meeting student and organisational expectations as academics. In response, we found meeting to be an invigorating process and decided to pursue a joint writing task exploring our experience of working in the neoliberal academy and engaging in our writing group. We also became excited about the possibilities the group provided to develop collective strategies for incorporating SW values into our pedagogy and practice within the neoliberal university. It is this same quest to explore the emancipatory capacity of female agency that led to our decision to collate our experiences as vignettes of what is it to be a female ECA.
Aiming to further combine feminist methodology and collaborative autoethnography with critical SW, the vignettes were also reflective, capturing our impression of event/s and our emotional responses to them which could change over time (Chang et al., 2016; Stanley, 2020). Aligning with an autoethnographic tradition the vignettes provide accessible examples for examination which can contribute to social change (Ellis and Bochner, 2006). The vignettes were then examined via a three-part process including (1) reading and reviewing data; (2) categorising and grouping data; and; (3) finding themes and connecting these to the original data (Chang et al., 2016). These processes revealed a series of commonalities and differences that allowed us to discover meanings of the stories within the sociocultural context of academia (Chang et al., 2016). The group was careful to consider differing viewpoints in interpretation of the vignettes. Contrasting interpretations and understandings of events and their context led to much deeper and richer understandings of our experiences. We acknowledge that for some our experiences may be challenging or even threatening to wider SW academy (Tolich, 2010). It is for this reason that our vignettes have been anonymised and edited to limit any possibilities for re-identification. In a similar consideration, only four vignettes were chosen to include in this article, as one ECA decided not to include theirs due to fear of reprisal from their institution.
Following the identification of key themes, the initial drive to document data and a focus on ‘outcomes’ gave way to a sense of shared solace. The formal writing component of this article was not always an efficient or timely process. Instead, notions of productivity were discarded in favour of a writing process that was respectful and supportive of all ECAs experience. An online document was shared between all authors, with initial tasks assigned. This process of collaboratively engaging and critically reflecting on our lived experiences allowed us to explore, understand and change our own practices of teaching and learning within SW. More importantly we suggest that groups such as ours offer space to examine, resist and dismantle the injustice we often experience as female, SW ECAs.
Being a female, SW ECR in a neoliberal university
The four vignettes below examine challenges faced both individually and collectively. The first vignette explores the discomfort involved in teaching social justice when students are challenged. Vignette two draws upon an experience of sexism between a masculinised discipline compared to the feminised discipline of SW. Vignette three explores expectations that female ECA’s use emotional labour to meet the expectations of both students and university. The final vignette examines teaching critical SW to students from countries where state sanctioned social control is considered normative. Within all these vignettes we examine our discomfort in meeting the needs of the university and students whilst still abiding by the values of the SW profession. Pressures to perform are contrasted with our obligation to uphold the values and ethics of SW.
Vignette one: Strategizing safety in the neoliberal university
The student, in their anonymous end-of-term feedback, formulated it well: ‘She needs to understand that these days, people get offended very easily. However, whenever this did happen, she handled it well’. The student could not have summarised my survival strategy better. This strategy comprises exactly three steps. • Step 1: know that some students will always be offended. • Step 2: never forget that some offended students prefer to provide their feedback via an anonymous customer satisfaction survey at the end of the semester rather than taking up the opportunity to engage in an open and honest, yet courteous and respectful, face-to-face disagreement at the point at which it occurs. • Step 3: always be ready to prevent bigger damage, whenever an offended student is noted, before it is too late.
I have taught this unit content, under different names before. Increasingly, at the start of each semester when I am due to teach this course, I feel a bit sick. Unsafe. Cold at the core. Alone. I cannot shake the feeling that I am surrounded by a dominant understanding that social justice can be achieved by individuals showing respect for the difference of other individuals. In this context, respect is taken to mean, trying not to offend. Being courteous and tolerant are important virtues, especially among those who relate to Others from a vantage point of privilege. However, I am also acutely aware that such a depoliticised rendering of respect works powerfully to silence dissent. What counts as courtesy and non-offensiveness lies in the eye of the beholder, and that neither go nearly far enough to undo the very material injustices that structure the day-to-day realities for those who find themselves structurally oppressed.
I am concerned that a considerable number of students seem to take respect to mean not being discomforted - and take being comfortable to mean not being challenged. Against this, my understanding of social justice entails challenging structural and institutionalised conditions of oppression - and challenging students to explore how, irrespective of good intentions, they may at times collude with oppressive structures and processes in their lives. It entails trying out in the classroom some of the conceptual and practical tools that are useful in confronting and undoing institutional oppression. Teaching these kinds of understandings requires naming things that are often left unsaid; creating moments of dis-ease that prompts students to ‘dig a little deeper’ for meaning; and challenging shared assumptions in ways that help to unsettle forms of collusion that leave, for example, people who have been classed, gendered or racialised bereft of a voice to register their dissent. I cannot shake the feeling that this goes against the grain of institutional practices that reduce my role to delivering an educational product the ‘quality’ of which is assessed against the level of students’ aggregate satisfaction. I do feel unsafe.
Vignette one: Group analysis
Within this vignette, the author describes her difficulty teaching students about social justice while not wanting to appear offensive or overtly challenging. For many students the current higher education landscape allows them to view the role of student as akin to customer (Morley and Ablett, 2020). Within this paradigm the student is paying for a qualification and may not wish to experience a discomfort in exploring their own values and beliefs. However, engaging students in a pedagogy of discomfort, where students confront their own previously unchallenged bias is intrinsic to SW education. These uncomfortable processes can lead to students reacting with anger and defensiveness, which can be directed toward teaching staff who are viewed as responsible for this discomfort.
Rather than engaging students in a transactional process, as SW educators the author’s attempt is to be transformative. Vignette one examines the author’s difficulty in engaging students in transformative learning whilst also being assessed by the institution and students through student ‘satisfaction’ surveys (Hornstein, 2017). Student evaluation of teaching and learning is common practice in the university and used to assess the effectiveness and promotion potential of academics. The author’s experience of balancing the requirements of the profession and the expectations of students and the institution, have led her to develop a strategy for her own safety and survival in the classroom and within the university. In response to this tension, the author’s three step strategy tries to limit the damage done through these surveys to her reputation and career prospects, mitigating some of the insecurity she feels. With a lack of organisational support, her teaching becomes a minefield of potential student dissatisfaction, and she carries the emotional costs alone as sensations of coldness, sickness and foreboding become signifiers of how the neoliberal learning enterprise has begun to inscribe dis-ease into her body. Yet, she persists with her commitment to teaching uncomfortable content, calculating the risks. In sharing her experience as well as her survival strategies, we as a collective are offered solace and practical navigation of complex terrain.
Vignette two: A male body in the female classroom
As an educator, I am often challenged by student’s questions, classroom dynamics and the challenges posed by adult cohorts with diverse learning experiences. However, a recent classroom experience has left me, and my female SW students baffled. More perplexing is that the instigator of this experience was not a disgruntled student, but rather, a fellow staff member!
In line with progressive and engaging methods of pedagogy, I was showing a cohort of Bachelor SW students a video montage to represent empowerment focused approaches to working with young people. The video, shot to upbeat music, featured a young man with cerebral palsy overcoming significant health challenges to compete in the X-games in Vancouver. The music and cinematography engrossed students, as we collectively viewed this young man’s triumph over adversity. Curiously, about 3 min into the video, the side door of the lecture auditorium opened and in walked a white man of middle age, from the discipline of IT entered. The mystery man, without saying a word, walked up to the lecture podium where I was standing, placed his hand on the audio-visual equipment and turned the sound down to a barely audible volume. Then, as suddenly as he appeared, he turned and walked back out the door without uttering a word or making eye contact with anyone. The experience left my students baffled and confused, and the disruption then impacted upon the whole classroom dynamic and the intended influence of the short video. As a female academic in a room of mostly young women his behaviour reminded me of the many male violations of my space and authority that had occurred in my life. One student muttered, ‘Wow, that was just so rude’. My class was made up predominantly of females and distracted by the proceeding events, then lost interest in the video.
While my class was distracted, I was outraged. Furious. Livid. Not only had a man, unknown to any of us, assumed entry into a space without our permission, his decision to interrupt the flow of my class was symptomatic to me of a much deeper gendered reality. It was as though his rights to have peace and quiet superseded any rights of a class of women to engage in learning. Had he asked us to turn it down, fine; had he politely informed us that they could hear our video in the teaching room next door, no problem, I’d adjust the sound. But instead, his display of privilege by entering a space and overriding the learning needs of my students was bewildering. His right to peace and quiet, however, was of paramount importance. It was though it had never entered his mind that he might need to ask permission, that he was not aware that a room of females had the right to a transformative learning experience.
Vignette two: Group analysis
Within the second vignette, the author describes her classroom being invaded and temporarily overtaken by a man from a male dominated discipline. Her classroom is full of female, SW students engaging in learning about empowerment. He violates the space but also her professional role as the teacher. Within this vignette, the male academic assumes a physical right to prioritise his own needs over the author’s. His actions have ramifications, considering the disciplinary differences between SW and IT and the gender divide among student enrolments. His behaviour is driven by the notion that his subject material, his student’s learning, is far greater and more important than a room of female SW students.
The author was violated and angry but felt shocked, not wishing to cause ‘trouble’ by stepping out of her role as a compliant female ECA. Actions such as this send important messages to both female students and staff; what women do is less important, disconnecting us from a sense of belonging or purpose (Rogers, 2017). Like many men before him, this male educator once more silenced women within an academic space. Like vignette one, the author was working alone despite being in a room full of students. In response to this experience of isolation, in sharing and analysing this vignette we as a collective offered the opportunity to listen, provide care and held space - all of which were denied to her in the physical place of the classroom.
Vignette three: Supporting the crumbling dreams of an international student
I eagerly arrive at the room to teach. I say hello …no one responds. That’s OK. I am here to teach critical thinking. My goal is to facilitate conversation and to encourage thought. I get into it. There are blank looks. I keep up my spirits, always. Staring back at me are faces of people, though they are merely masks until I learn more about each person. A room full of students who say very little. I wonder if I am doing it right?
On this day, one international student has her 2-year-old daughter with her in class. She apologises and looks embarrassed. I smile and I tell her it is OK. She doesn’t smile back. She has tears in her eyes. She is trying to get her child to stay as quiet as possible while she attempts to listen to everything I am saying. I have children the same age. Later, I saw this student privately. She cries silently and intensely. Overwhelmed by the barriers, but not ready for defeat. She has no childcare. She is facing poverty in Australia. She is overcome with stress. She is failing. Her family has given all the money they have for her to be here. She cannot let them down. The burden on her shoulders is unsurmountable. She looks to me for hope. After all, I am a social worker right? I am also a mother, as well as a woman.
This is not the first time I have heard this story. It is an echo of the same narrative I have so frequently heard that I have lost count. A system I am very much part of has given her access to education, though the rules are firm. They have taken her money, but in trade for what? Does this exchange deliver her a fair education? Is she set up to fail? I ask myself as a critical social worker, what are my responsibilities?
I physically feel her grief. Do I have a role in empowering her in a system that renders her powerless? If students cannot afford to meet their basic living needs for survival, how can they focus? It is a flawed exchange. Should the intervention be education or empowerment? Then again perhaps the fact they are in a room learning about this very topic is empowering and facilitates hope. Perhaps I am, in fact, doing enough. It still makes me question what identity should respond…the teacher, the social worker, the employee or just another woman.
Vignette three: Group analysis
Within this vignette the students' engagement is stymied by poverty and isolation. Whilst Australian universities are heavily reliant on international students for revenue (Sims, 2020), our experience is that some international students find themselves lacking in support from the university. In coming to Australia, the student in this vignette has experienced hardship but received limited support in relation to finances or childcare. However, when the student asks for help from the university via the ECA in this study, she is unable to offer much, if any, formal, institutional support. Rather the ECA is left to feeling individually responsible for the student’s well being and ability to complete her studies.
As the ‘face’ of the university, teaching intensive ECA’s are often asked by students to respond or find solutions to their needs. The desire to assist this student is magnified by her status as a mother, a role also shared by many of the ECA’s in this group. Our desire to assist students such as this is almost innate however the limitations in our role are real. Once again, the neoliberal academe positions its economic viability over what we perceive to be the more pressing need of student poverty, isolation and the juggling of multiple roles. Continued tensions were also evident in vignette four which explores our struggle teaching critical social work to students from societies with strict social control.
Vignette four: Navigating foreign interference
I’m trying to teach and engage students with critical SW. For many it is new and challenging, they want clear, cookie cutter responses to social issues. Although I love the content of this class, I loathe teaching this class due to the blank stares and increasingly the empty seats. Like so many students - domestic and international, this cohort seems reluctant to read or to ask questions. The discomfort I feel teaching this class is compounded by the students who have just recently joined us from overseas. They struggle with language, culture, homesickness and poverty.
I teach in a manner which encourages a praxis of learning, where students come together to share ideas or solve problems. I find it challenging to get this class to merge and talk. The awkwardness spills over into my confidence guiding and teaching them. I feel anxious, I want the bathroom, I’m sweating as I ask them to talk in groups or pairs. Many of them flatly ignore my request and authority, preferring the comfort of a smartphone screen. One day I find myself talking about the pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong as an example of resistance to regimes of social control. The few students I have from Hong Kong seem to appreciate this conversation and offer their lived experience to the cohort. They become engaged and I feel the praxis of my class is forming. In the break, a promising student from mainland China comes up to me and says no one is thinking that maybe extraditing people could lead to greater justice. I feel deeply uncomfortable, but I am left wondering how he can marry SW values with his commitment to social control? I shuffle my feet and see the Hong Kong students watching our conversations. I feel on display, as if I need to respond in a way that does not offend but asserts the correct position as a SWer. However, I also know I cannot alienate my Chinese student and his cohort who pay big money to attend this course.
I feel acutely disillusioned and disappointed for the rest of semester, questioning my purpose and ability to teach. I’m crucified by students in the survey, who complain about the difficulty of topics, the amount of reading and the assessment. I seem to embody all that is conflicting and confusing about SW education within the neoliberal university; am I aiming for social justice or the university’s economic survival?
Vignette four: Group analysis
Within this vignette the author expresses discomfort in teaching and meeting the needs of international students. This vignette raises issues in teaching human rights, critical theory and anti-oppressive practice to those living under authoritarian rule. International students in Australia can come from a wide variety of nations and backgrounds which differing expectations in relation to curriculum and pedagogy. This can create deep tensions between ECA’s and students in relation to expected academic outcomes but also the political and social positioning of the academic and the university. Within this vignette the social justice position of SW is not always favoured by either the student or the neoliberal university.
This vignette served as a reminder to all authors of the discomfort they experience in meeting expectations of students, the institution and the profession simultaneously. This can result in a sense of shared confusion between academics and students, disrupting the veneer of the rational ‘expert’. In sharing their intellectual and emotional discomfort, the author reveals their vulnerability, permitting us to dissect and problem solve the issues they face.
All four vignettes highlight our collective discomfort in being female ECAs teaching SW in neoliberal institutions. In our attempt to teach students SW, our experience is hampered by sexism, limited support services and a requirement to meet expectations of students and institutions. We feel this is symptomatic of a higher education system dogged by a capitalist mandate and ultimately runs counterintuitive to the pursuit of social justice. In reflecting on these experiences, we have developed a new way of working and countering the neoliberal discourse of our institutions.
Discussion
There are no easy solutions or answers to how we should respond to the vignettes presented in this article. These vignettes represent our daily working lives and are not unique to our experience. They do however capture a moment in time and exemplify the challenges we experience as female SW ECAs in the neoliberal university. What makes our experience unique is the decision to share these experiences and engage in a process of collaborative autoethnography.
Through working together and sharing stories we found the ability to re-contextualise and conceptualise our experience of being female ECAs. At times, our work environments feel hostile, and we fear our social justice agenda is usurped by consumer models of education. As individuals these experiences felt oppressive and hopeless leading to personal feelings of disillusionment and discomfort. Our personal experiences of discomfort became important in reminding us we exist within a system that is not accustomed to women’s ways of knowing and being (hooks, 1994). Although it may seem logical to work collectively as social workers to change an oppressive system, our study highlights how the neoliberal university strives to ensure individual academics are responsible for ensuring we minimise risk to ourselves or the organisation (Sims, 2020).
In rejection to the masculinist model of neoliberal universities, our response to form a feminist writing group remains radical. Although collective responses have been a mainstay of feminist activism, they remain far from the norm within neoliberal universities. In finding each other, sharing, and writing our stories we began to perceive, analyse and evaluate our lived experiences and develop a collective voice. Rather than simply sharing problems and seeking solutions, our writing group provided a safe space for collective reflection and resistance.
In rejection of the formal masculinist structure of our universities, our meetings took an informal tone where shoes were cast off, bags strewn and sustenance provided in the form of shared meals. The provision of care and support was also entwined with humour and hospitality, enabling a space where we could honour and validate our experiences. This ethic of care and concern for each other runs counter to the masculine hegemonic discourse of higher education (Rogers, 2017). Our process of analysing the practices of higher education, allowed us to explore bigger questions about our role as female educators in neoliberal settings (Burns, 2018). We found that as we care for each other we also care for ourselves, giving space to explore and reject processes and practices which are considered care-less of women’s needs within the academy (Rogers, 2017).
Feminist groups such as ours produce new opportunities for creativity, thought and innovation. It is telling that this space is not available within our institutions and instead is something which needs to be created and developed to eliminate our loneliness and isolation. In sharing tactics and strategies that allow us to navigate neoliberal universities has allowed us to create an alternative, safe, feminist academic culture. Owning and voicing our identity as feminist, SW academics has led to us understand and embrace the uncertainty between the academics we wish to be and the academics we are expected to be. The process of sharing and collectively analysing our experiences has transformed us from feeling individually responsible for short comings within the university and instead has provided a space for transformation. We call upon our fellow SW educators to engage in both social and academic action to radically respond and restructure the academy. We owe this not only to ourselves but to emerging social workers struggling with inadequate spaces.
Conclusion
As we identified and reflected upon our individual experiences of being female ECAs in SW, the group facilitated a process where we were able to sit with the complexities of our roles. In learning and sharing our discomfort we have provided ourselves with hope, strength, and an opportunity for growth, which may also be needed for our survival as feminist ECAs (Gannon et al., 2015). Finally, through engaging in a process of collaborative autoethnography space developed for the development of counternarratives, where we were validated, heard and empowered.
Universities have long favoured masculinist ideas about reason being separate from emotion (Rogers, 2017). In channelling and sharing our emotions and disquiet, we display collective bravery, needed in both the academy and SW. Rather than embodying downtrodden individualised positions, the group allowed us to embody a new and different position. Collectively, we began to realise we were in fact the future of the profession that the stories and coping mechanisms shared and developed connected to our future leadership in the SW academy. Our methodology of meeting, reflecting and collectively writing allowed us to create knowledge about how to survive neoliberal spaces whilst still maintaining a commitment to the social justice mission of the profession. Rather than ignoring this discomfort our collective reflection and resistance is driven by physical and emotional understanding of injustice. We call on fellow SW academics to embrace each other their experience of discomfort and find new, novel ways of resisting neoliberalism within the academy.
Footnotes
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
