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Universities’ pursuit of inclusion and its effects on professional staff : the case of the United Kingdom

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Baltaru, Roxana-Diana (2019) Universities’ pursuit of inclusion and its effects on professional staff : the case of the United Kingdom. Higher Education, 77 (4). pp. 641-656. doi:10.1007/s10734-018-0293-7

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-018-0293-7

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Abstract

This paper explores the proliferation of non-academic professionals as a cultural response to universities’ mission of inclusion. Departing from a neo-institutionalist perspective, the author argues that the diffusion of highly rationalised models of institutional action shapes universities as formal organisations who engage with new levels of professional expertise in the pursuit of goals and missions. The United Kingdom (UK) offers an illustrative example, the emergence of statutory equality duties on public institutions (race equality duty 2001, disability equality duty 2006 and gender equality duty 2007) nurturing an image of universities as strategic for the pursuit of demographic inclusion. Using yearly longitudinal data on 109 UK universities from 2003 to 2011, the author shows that universities increase their professional staff in catering for demographic inclusion in terms of ethnicity and disability, revealing highly rationalised institutional responses to the aforementioned equality duties. The findings contribute to the neo-institutionalist literature drawing attention to the transformation of universities into organisational actors (i.e. highly integrated entities, strategically oriented towards the pursuit of formally articulated goals and targets), which contrasts with traditional conceptions of the university as an institution with a taken-for-granted societal role and loosely defined organisational backbone. The findings provide the impetuous for further empirical research into the role of professional staff as universities assimilate new goals and missions.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
L Education > LB Theory and practice of education > LB2300 Higher Education
Divisions: Faculty of Social Sciences > Sociology
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): Universities and colleges -- Social aspects -- Great Britain, Equality, Race, Disabilities
Journal or Publication Title: Higher Education
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
ISSN: 0018-1560
Official Date: April 2019
Dates:
DateEvent
April 2019Published
17 July 2018Available
28 June 2018Accepted
Volume: 77
Number: 4
Page Range: pp. 641-656
DOI: 10.1007/s10734-018-0293-7
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant:
Project/Grant IDRIOXX Funder NameFunder ID
ES/J500045/1[ESRC] Economic and Social Research Councilhttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000269

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