Undermining resilience: how the modern UK university manufactures heightened vulnerability in legal academics and what is to be done

Ferris, G ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0574-1978, 2021. Undermining resilience: how the modern UK university manufactures heightened vulnerability in legal academics and what is to be done. The Law Teacher, 55 (1), pp. 24-41. ISSN 0306-9400

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Abstract

Legal academics are vulnerable and the contemporary law school is eroding their resilience. Using vulnerability theory, as developed by Professor Martha Fineman, this article analysis the reasons for the loss of assets that could provide resilience in the modern university and the modern law school. Audit culture, the economics of resourcing higher education, the growth of mass higher education, the ideology of neo-liberalism, and managerialism as a feature of that ideology, are all factors that play a role in degrading the resilience of academics. The growth of precarious labour, overwork, attacks upon educational and disciplinary values, attacks upon academic freedom, and pressure on academic identity are all consequences of these factors. Disengagement, feelings of failure, ill health and low wellbeing are the embodiments of these consequences. Vulnerability theory is used to carry out a synthesis of materials drawn from literatures on education, legal education, higher education, health and safety at work, self-determination theory, and professional vocation. This synthesis highlights value conflicts between neo-liberal managerialism and educational values that risk undermining academic existential resources. Vulnerability theory is then used to identify potential means of resistance and potential places for resistance within and beyond the law school.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	The Law Teacher
Creators:	Ferris, G.
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
Date:	March 2021
Volume:	55
Number:	1
ISSN:	0306-9400
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1080/03069400.2021.1872865 DOI 1631452 Other
Divisions:	Schools > Nottingham Law School
Record created by:	Jeremy Silvester
Date Added:	18 Jan 2023 09:28
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2023 09:28
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/47920

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