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<p>Working in the contemporary university sector is increasingly impacting the wellbeing of educators negatively, leading to burnout, increased stress, and even suicide. Educators often focus more on students’ wellbeing than their own, while commonly&#xa0; not feeling adequately supported or empowered to deal with their own wellbeing issues. These feelings can be further exacerbated in enabling programs, which provide pathways into university for students who have experienced educational disadvantage or disruption. Teaching within these programs requires a tailored pedagogical approach to support a diverse cohort. Due to the complicated, sometimes emotionally taxing nature of this work, continous professional development (CPD) is required to support educators to expand their practice and counter potential deficit positioning of students. CPD underpinned by critical theory provides opportunity to enhance educator agency and collegiality, improving outcomes for students and educators. This paper adopts a discursive theoretical position to report on how evaluation of two forms of CPD revealed impacts on educator wellbeing, as identified during participant interviews. Through poststructuralist discourse analysis of interview data, themes emerged about neoliberal logics within higher education, including an emphasis on individualism, competition, and efficiency. Importantly, analysis revealed how involvement in CPD had functioned as a form of resistance: fostering collegiality and teamwork, countering feelings of isolation; assisting educators to feel supported and enhancing individual agency; and alleviating the pressure of juggling heavy teaching loads and producing scholarly outputs.</p>

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Resisting the neo-liberalising of universities through continuous professional development: The unexpected impact on educator wellbeing in an enabling program

  • 期刊论文

  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年6月20日

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  • Tanya Weiler,
  • Sarah Hattam

摘要

Working in the contemporary university sector is increasingly impacting the wellbeing of educators negatively, leading to burnout, increased stress, and even suicide. Educators often focus more on students’ wellbeing than their own, while commonly  not feeling adequately supported or empowered to deal with their own wellbeing issues. These feelings can be further exacerbated in enabling programs, which provide pathways into university for students who have experienced educational disadvantage or disruption. Teaching within these programs requires a tailored pedagogical approach to support a diverse cohort. Due to the complicated, sometimes emotionally taxing nature of this work, continous professional development (CPD) is required to support educators to expand their practice and counter potential deficit positioning of students. CPD underpinned by critical theory provides opportunity to enhance educator agency and collegiality, improving outcomes for students and educators. This paper adopts a discursive theoretical position to report on how evaluation of two forms of CPD revealed impacts on educator wellbeing, as identified during participant interviews. Through poststructuralist discourse analysis of interview data, themes emerged about neoliberal logics within higher education, including an emphasis on individualism, competition, and efficiency. Importantly, analysis revealed how involvement in CPD had functioned as a form of resistance: fostering collegiality and teamwork, countering feelings of isolation; assisting educators to feel supported and enhancing individual agency; and alleviating the pressure of juggling heavy teaching loads and producing scholarly outputs.