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What do we know about academic culture? A review of the concept in the field of higher education studies* * English version by Ricardo Reyes Reyes. 1 1 - This study was supported by ANID-Chile, Fondecyt project 1170960.

Abstract

Academic culture has a long tradition in higher education studies; nevertheless, only a few studies on this concept are available. This article aims to review the use of the concept of academic culture in higher education literature based on a bibliographic review, supported by bibliometric techniques, of studies on this topic in the last twenty years, paying special attention to state of the art in the Latin American context. The results show a growing use of the concept, which has not been yet linked to a clear definition that could conduce to the consolidation of a field of study of the cultural dimension of the sector. Specifically, there are four lines of research on academic culture: the impact of changes in the political economy on the traditional values of higher education institutions, the challenges of international exchange of students and academics, the recognition of implicit biases in the dominant academic culture, and the relationship between tacit regulations and organizational reform processes. This article also addresses how the fundamentally atheoretical character of academic culture studies mirrors the state of research in higher education, particularly in the Latin American context.

Academic culture; Higher education; Universities

Resumen

La idea de cultura académica tiene una amplia tradición en los estudios en educación superior. Sin embargo, existen pocos estudios actuales sobre este concepto. Este artículo tiene por objetivo revisar el uso del concepto de cultura académica en la literatura especializada en educación superior a partir de una revisión bibliográfica, fundamentada por técnicas bibliométricas, de los estudios sobre este tema en los últimos veinte años, prestando especial atención al estado del arte en el contexto latinoamericano. Los resultados muestran que si bien existe una utilización creciente del concepto, esta no ha ido vinculada a una definición clara ni a la consolidación de un campo de estudios específico. En particular, existen cuatro líneas de investigación sobre cultura académica: el impacto de los cambios en la economía política en los valores tradicionales de las instituciones de educación superior, los desafíos del intercambio internacional de estudiantes y académicos, el reconocimiento de los prejuicios implícitos a la cultura académica dominante, y la relación entre normas tácitas y procesos de reforma organizacional. Además se discute cómo el carácter fundamentalmente ateórico de los estudios en cultura académica refleja el estado de la investigación en educación superior, especialmente en el contexto latinoamericano.

Cultura académica; Educación superior; Universidades

Introduction

Since the origins of higher education studies, the cultural dimension of universities has received significant attention. As early as the 1970s, it is possible to identify research focused on the ideologies of students and academics and of higher education institutions as a whole (BECKER, 1963BECKER, Howard Saul. Student culture. In: LUNSFORD, Terry F. (org.). The study of campus cultures. Boulder: Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, 1963. p. 11-26.; REISMAN; JENSCKS, 1962REISMAN, David; JENSCKS, Christopher. The viability of the American college. In: SANFORD, Nevitt (org.). The American college: a psychological and social interpretation of higher education. Hoboken: Wiley, 1962. p. 74-192.). In recent decades, the concept of academic culture has come into crisis, questioning its neutral character. Further attention has been focused on the tensions that emerge within the dominant culture of the university, particularly between academics and students (CAMERON; ETTINGTON, 1988CAMERON, Kim; ETTINGTON, Deborah. The conceptual foundations of organizational culture. In: SMART, John C. (org.). Higher education: handbook of theory and research. New York: Agathon, 1988. p. 356-396.).

This article reviews the use of the concept of academic culture in the specialized literature on higher education. First, the field of academic culture studies and its main lines of research are characterized. Second, the research methodology is detailed: a literature review based on bibliometric techniques processed through abductive content analysis. Thirdly, the results are presented. After identifying the uses of academic culture in the specialized literature, the state of academic culture studies is discussed compared to the general field of research in higher education. The article ends with a brief overview and suggestions for lines of study of the academic culture at conceptual and empirical levels.

Studies in higher education: the idea of academic culture

Since the origins of this field of study, the analysis of the cultural aspects of the development of higher education institutions have played a central role. Today it is possible to identify at least three lines of analysis of the concept in the literature: the culture of higher education systems, the culture of professions and disciplines, and the culture of universities.

The first line of studies analyzes how the concept of higher education has undergone radical transformations in recent decades, abandoning traditionally accepted ideas when discussing the attributes of these institutions, which include their understanding as organizations with the main responsibility of training professionals at the service of the State or, in the Latin American context, the definition of their task in terms of social commitment (TÜNNERMAN, 2003TÜNNERMAN, Carlos. La universidad latinoamericana ante los retos del siglo XXI. Ciudad de México: Unión de Universidades de América Latina, 2003.). These studies tend to emphasize how the emergence of a knowledge society, along with other dynamics such as the massification of student enrollment and the privatization of funding, has resulted in the reformulation of the purposes of higher education institutions, which have as a result embraced a new ethos (CLARK, 1998CLARK, Burton. Creating entrepreneurial universities: organizational pathways of transformation. v. 16. Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1998.). From a more critical perspective, it is argued that the neo-liberalization of higher education systems has prompted universities to abandon their inherent cultural purposes and to become organizations that are driven primarily by financial definitions (OLSSEN; PETERS, 2005OLSSEN, Mark; PETERS, Michael. Neoliberalism, higher education and the knowledge economy: from the free market to knowledge capitalism. Journal of Education Policy, Abingdon, v. 20, n. 3, p. 313-345, 2005.).

The second line of analysis of academic culture focuses on the level of professions and disciplines. Several studies have shown how changes in the political economy of higher education systems have promoted a reshaping of the identities of the graduate students of these institutions, with attributes such as flexibility, teamwork, and problem-solving skills becoming more significant (ALLEN; VAN DER VELDEN, 2011ALLEN, Jim; VAN DER VELDEN, Rolf (ed.). The flexible professional in the knowledge society. Dordrecht: Springer, 2011. (Higher education dynamics).). In this particular context, research on how the culture of the academic profession, despite its tradition, has shifted in this direction is important (COLLYER, 2014COLLYER, Fran. Practices of conformity and resistance in the marketisation of the academy: Bourdieu, professionalism and academic capitalism. Critical Studies in Education, Abingdon, v. 56, n. 3, p. 315-331, 2014.). Regarding disciplinary culture, some analyses identify the main differences in the self-understanding of academics according to their area of knowledge (XU, 2008), while others question how recent developments, particularly the growing social valuation of interdisciplinarity and practical knowledge, modify the goals attributed to scientific disciplines (BRUNNER et al., 2019bBRUNNER, José Joaquín et al. Idea moderna de universidad: de la torre de marfil al capitalismo académico. Educación XX1, Madrid, v. 22, n. 2, p. 119-140, 2019b.).

Finally, the third line of academic cultural studies addresses the dominant ideologies in various higher education institutions. This approach focuses on the institution as a whole, examining the self-understanding of the organization and how it impacts students, academics, and administrators. This approach focuses on the institution as a whole, examining the self-understanding of the organization and how it impacts students, academics, and administrators. The mission and goals of universities, their historical trajectory, and how they respond to changes in the national system’s political economy and governance receive here special attention, as does how the culture of different institutions is internally transformed by global pressures such as competition to adhere to the research university model, the imperative to become a desirable destination for students and academics or, on an internal level, the pressure to consolidate a professional administrative structure in university management (FELDMAN; DESROCHERS, 2004FELDMAN, Maryann; DESROCHERS, Pierre. Truth for its own sake: academic culture and technology transfer at Johns Hopkins University. Minerva, New York, v. 42, p. 105-126, 2004.).

This article focuses on this last dimension of academic culture, examining in detail how it has been understood in the specialized literature. The methodology guiding the analysis of the relevant literature on the concept of academic culture is presented below, followed by the main findings of this research.

Methodology

Studies reviewing academic production in higher education have become increasingly relevant in the last decade (BRUNNER et al., 2019aBRUNNER, José Joaquín et al. Centro y márgenes: análisis del capitalismo académico en la literatura angloamericana y en español y portugués. Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas, Tempe, v. 27, n. 79, p. 1-35, 2019a.; HUANG et al., 2019HUANG, Cui et al. Evolution of topics in education research: a systematic review using bibliometric analysis. Educational Review, Abingdon, v. 72, n. 3, p. 281-297, 2019.; KOSMÜTSKY; KRÜCKEN, 2014KOSMÜTSKY, Anna; KRÜCKEN, Georg. Growth or steady state? A bibliometric focus on international comparative higher education research. Higher Education, New York, v. 67, n. 4, p. 457-472, 2014.; VLEGELS; HUISMAN, 2020VLEGELS, Jef; HUISMAN, Jeroen. The emergence of the higher education research field (1976-2018): preferential attachment, smallworldness and fragmentation in its collaboration networks. Higher Education, New York, v. 81, p. 1079-1095, 2020.). Using bibliometric tools, specifically the publication count (DE BELLIS, 2009DE BELLIS, Nicola. Bibliometrics and citation analysis: from the science citation index to cybermetrics. Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 2009.), this research conducts a literature review of studies on academic culture in higher education. The literature review consists of a structured analysis of the academic production in a particular area of knowledge, identifying topics and approaches to provide insights into the available knowledge (GÓMEZ-LUNA et al., 2014GÓMEZ-LUNA, Eduardo et al. Literature review methodology for scientific and information management, through its structuring and systematization. Dyna, Bogotá, v. 81, n. 184, p. 158-163, 2014.; NORONHA; FERREIRA, 2000NORONHA, Daisy; FERREIRA, Sueli. Revisões da literatura. In: CAMPELLO, Bernadete Santos; CENDÓN, Beatriz Valadares; KREMER, Jeanette Marguerite (org.). Fontes de informação para pesquisadores e profissionais. Belo Horizonte: UFMG, 2000. p. 191-198.; VOSGERAU; ROMANOWSKI, 2014VOSGERAU, Dilmeire; ROMANOWSKI, Joana. Estudos de revisão: implicações conceituais e metodológicas. Revista Diálogo Educacional, Curitiba, v. 14, n. 41, p. 165-189, 2014.).

In the case of this literature review, to identify studies on academic culture, indexed articles in the scientific repositories Web of Science (WoS) and SciELO were reviewed. These two repositories allow, on the one hand, to compile publications in the most prestigious journals indexed in WoS, usually written in English, and, on the other hand, include the academic production of the Latin American region in Spanish and Portuguese, which is mostly indexed in SciELO (VÉLEZ CUARTAS; LUCIO ARIAS; LEYDESDORFF, 2016VÉLEZ-CUARTAS, Gabriel; LUCIO-ARIAS, Diana; LEYDESDORFF, Loet. Regional and global science: publications from Latin America and the Caribbean in the SciELO citation index and the Web of Science. El Profesional de la Información, León, v. 25, n. 1, p. 35-46, 2016.).

Initially, studies indexed in both repositories were considered if their title, abstract, or keywords included “academic culture” or “academic cultures” in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Related searches were carried out during June 2020: 548 texts were then found (501 in WoS and 47 in SciELO). The titles and abstracts of the 548 research studies were then reviewed, removing studies that did not focus on the analysis of the university academic culture or mentioned this concept superficially; those studies that were repeated in both databases or written in a language other than Spanish, Portuguese or English; or those that had been developed outside the period of analysis between 2000 and 2020.

The result of this selection process was reduced to 207 (163 in WoS and 44 in SciELO). The conceptual perspectives of this sample of studies focused on the analysis of academic culture in the field of higher education were then reviewed reading the introduction, state of the art or conceptual framework, and conclusions sections of the articles, as these are the ones that provide more information on the theoretical approaches employed (BRUNNER et al., 2019aBRUNNER, José Joaquín et al. Centro y márgenes: análisis del capitalismo académico en la literatura angloamericana y en español y portugués. Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas, Tempe, v. 27, n. 79, p. 1-35, 2019a.). Following Tight’s proposal (2013, 2014), these articles were then classified into three categories: reflexive essays, consisting of studies proposing a conceptual interpretation of a topic but without presenting an explicit empirical reference (usually lacking methodology); empirical studies, consisting of studies that, while having a clear empirical reference, do not use an explicit theoretical framework to make sense of their findings; and finally, comprehensive studies, consisting of studies that include a conceptual discussion section and present a clear empirical reference. In cases where the research employed a conceptual framework, the selected theory was identified.

Based on the reading of the complete texts, those focused on studying academic culture in universities were then selected, limiting the analysis to 74 research studies, which were examined through content analysis techniques. Guest et al. (2013)GUEST, Greg; NAMEY, Emily; MITCHELL, Marilyn. Collecting qualitative data: a field manual for applied research. London: Sage, 2013. distinguish two content analysis techniques: deductive and inductive. Combining these two techniques, this study identified the definition of academic culture in the selected documents, then created inductive codes according to the different understandings of this concept and, finally, grouped the different characterizations based upon their thematic affinity. The qualitative software Atlas.ti, which offers the necessary tools to create codes in the articles, was used to establish relationships between academic culture analysis approaches and identify common patterns (CAÏS; FOLGUERA; FORMOSO, 2014CAÏS, Jordi; FOLGUERA, Laia; FORMOSO, Climent. Investigación cualitativa longitudinal. Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 2014.). This codification led to the synthesis of four approaches to the concept of academic culture. Table 1 summarizes these perspectives and the items that each includes.

Table 1
Perspectives of analysis on academic culture and their definitions and articles

Findings

As we will explore in this section, studies on academic culture are becoming increasingly important in the field of higher education research. The search in WoS and SciELO, for instance, resulted in 548 papers, of which 49 were produced between 2000 and 2004, 83 between 2005 and 2009, 110 between 2010 and 2014, and 306 between 2015 and 2020, as mentioned earlier. In other words, more than half of the production has been written in the last five years, showing a continuous growth of interest in this subject.

Considering only those studies on the field of academic culture in universities, the number of articles is reduced to 207. It is interesting to remark that 58.5% of the research (121) are empirical studies with no conceptual approach, followed by reflective essays on the different dimensions of the concept of academic culture without an associated methodology, with 28% of the total (58). Finally, only 13.5% of these studies effectively combine an analytical framework with an empirical referent (28), the main approaches used being organizational change theory, habitus, and structuralist theory.

Selecting those studies that incorporate an explicit definition of academic culture confirms the diagnosis of an essentially atheoretical field of analysis. This operation reduces the number of studies significantly, with the total representing only 10.6% of the studies on university culture (22). The definitions of academic culture used can be found in Table 2.

Table 2
Perspectives of analysis on academic culture, its definitions and articles

The qualitative analysis of the 74 studies that focus on issues of academic culture in universities allowed the identification of four lines of research. The first group consists of 17 studies that examine the impact on the culture, values, and expectations of students and academics of different transformations in the political economy of higher education systems, such as private funding of higher education, the establishment of external quality assurance systems and the urge to publish in internationally indexed journals. In general, these studies underscore how such tendencies have altered the traditional culture of universities, shifting them closer to a business model of management and eroding their intrinsic concern for the common good (COLEMAN, 2010COLEMAN, Nathaniel. The limits of professional architectural education. The International Journal of Art & Design Education, Hoboken, v. 29, n. 2, p. 200-212, 2010.; ORR; ORR, 2016ORR, Yancey; ORR, Raymond. The death of Socrates: managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation in universities. Australian Universities Review, Melbourne, v. 58, n. 2, p. 15-25, 2016.; ZIMAN, 2003ZIMAN, John. Ciencia y sociedad civil. Isegoría, Madrid, n. 28, p. 5-17, 2003.). Most of that research is focused on the effects of recent reforms in Asian systems, especially in China (LAI, 2013LAI, Manhong. The changing work life of academics: a comparative study of a renowned and a regional university in the Chinese Mainland. The Australian Educational Researcher, New York, v. 40, n. 1, p. 27-45, 2013.; LIU; METCALFE, 2016LIU, Huacong; METCALFE, Amy Scott. Internationalizing Chinese higher education: a glonacal analysis of local layers and conditions. Higher Education, New York, v. 71, n. 3, p. 399-413, 2016.; RHOADS; HU, 2012RHOADS, Robert A.; HU, Juan. The internationalization of faculty life in China. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, Abingdon, v. 32, n. 3, p. 351-365, 2012.; SZELÉNYI; RHOADS, 2013SZELÉNYI, Katalin; RHOADS, Robert. Academic culture and citizenship in transitional societies: case studies from China and Hungary. Higher Education, New York, v. 66, n. 4, p. 425-438, 2013.; TIAN; LU, 2017TIAN, Mei; LU, Genshu. What price the building of world-class universities? Academic pressure faced by young lecturers at a research-centered University in China. Teaching in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 22, n. 8, p. 957-974, 2017.;) and South Korea (SHIN et al., 2015SHIN, Jung Cheol et al. The ‘sandwich generation’ in Korean academe: between traditional academic authority and meritocratic culture. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 40, n. 8, p. 1406-1422, 2015.), Taiwan (CHOU; CHAN, 2016CHOU, Chuing Prudence; CHAN, Chi-Fong. Trends in publication in the race for world-class university: the case of Taiwan. Higher Education Policy, London, v. 29, n. 4, p. 431-449, 2016., 2017CHOU, Chuing Prudence; CHAN, Chi-Fong. Governance and academic culture in higher education: under the influence of the SSCI syndrome. Journal of International and Comparative Education, Kuala Lampur, v. 6, n. 2, p. 63-75, 2017.), and Malaysia (DA WAN et al., 2015DA WAN, Chang et al. Academic culture in Malaysia: sources of satisfaction and frustration. Asia Pacific Education Review, New York, v. 16, n. 4, p. 517-526, 2015.), and in identifying the consequences of academic capitalism and its ‘Publish or Perish’ imperative on the values of students and scholars at U.S. institutions (BOOSE; HUTCHINGS, 2016BOOSE, David; HUTCHINGS, Pat. The scholarship of teaching and learning as a subversive activity. Teaching & Learning Inquiry, Calgary, v. 4, n. 1, 2016.; KUNTZ, PETROVIC; GINOCCHIO, 2012KUNTZ, Aaron; PETROVIC, John; GINOCCHIO, Lou. A changing sense of place: a case study of academic culture and the built environment. Higher Education Policy, London, v. 25, n. 4, p. 433-451, 2012.; NICOL, 2013NICOL, Donna. Movement conservatism and the attack on ethnic studies. Race Ethnicity and Education, Abingdon, v. 16, n. 5, p. 653-672, 2013.).

The development of this line in the Latin American context has been especially substantial in Argentina and Brazil. In the Argentinean case, the existing analysis suggests that the academic culture of universities historically focused on their contribution in the country’s democratization. However, since the 1970s, in the context of the imposition of neoliberal policies in different areas of social life in this country, the commercialization of academic work was further encouraged, entering into crisis the classical understanding of Latin American universities (SCHUGURENSKY; NAIDORF, 2004SCHUGURENSKY, Daniel; NAIDORF, Judith. Parceria universidade-empresa e mudanças na cultura acadêmica: análise comparativa dos casos da Argentina e do Canadá. Educação & Sociedade, Campinas, v. 25, n. 88, p. 997-1022, 2004.). In a similar direction, Ribeiro and Leda (2016)RIBEIRO, Carla Vaz dos Santos; LEDA, Denise Bessa. O trabalho docente no enfrentamento do gerencialismo nas universidades federais brasileiras: repercussões na subjetividade. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 32, n. 4, p. 97-117, 2016. describe how neoliberal policies have rendered academic work precarious, imposing new control systems, resulting in the erosion of academic culture within Brazilian universities.

As reflected in the following fragments, these studies frequently adopt a critical tone, emphasizing the adverse effects of the growing privatization of the field on the academic culture of university institutions.

Universities have been the stewards of both legacies [knowledge is valuable enough to make sacrifices for, and alternatives to communal norms are important for individual and social life]. We now watch these traditions end and share Plato’s tears in losing such a friend in our own lives. The new hemlock is not made from a conscious effort to end the enriching aspects of the spirit of inquiry, intellectual growth and education. But as we have described, managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation alter the lives of academics, the culture of the university and the mentalities of its academics to the point to which they no longer reflect Socratic values. (ORR; ORR, 2016ORR, Yancey; ORR, Raymond. The death of Socrates: managerialism, metrics and bureaucratisation in universities. Australian Universities Review, Melbourne, v. 58, n. 2, p. 15-25, 2016., p. 24).

The culture of managerialism permeated by the ideology of excellence penetrates the daily life of the teacher and imposes an unending search for an ever-changing standard of success and the continuous need to surpass oneself and others (RIBEIRO; LEDA, 2016RIBEIRO, Carla Vaz dos Santos; LEDA, Denise Bessa. O trabalho docente no enfrentamento do gerencialismo nas universidades federais brasileiras: repercussões na subjetividade. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 32, n. 4, p. 97-117, 2016., p. 105).

A second research line, consisting of 10 articles, focuses on how students in international exchange programs must face a series of integration problems during their studies. Although these analyses have been developed at the undergraduate level, their relevance is higher in Ph.D. programs due to the larger participation of international students at this level. Remarkably, much of the research in this line focuses on describing the insertion of students in international programs in countries such as the United States (IVANOVA, 2019IVANOVA, Rossitza. Using “where I’m from” poems to welcome international ESL students into U.S. academic culture. Tesol Journal, Hoboken, v. 10, n. 2, e00399, 2019.), England (BROWN, 2008BROWN, Lorraine. The Incidence of study-related stress in international students in the initial stage of the international sojourn. Journal of Studies in International Education, Thousand Oaks, v. 12, n. 1, p. 5-28, 2008.; TIAN; LOWE, 2013TIAN, Mei; LOWE, John. The role of feedback in cross-cultural learning: a case study of Chinese taught postgraduate students in a UK university. Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 38, n. 5, p. 580-598, 2013.), Australia (WARNER; MILLER, 2015WARNER, Richard; MILLER, Julia. Cultural dimensions of feedback at an Australian university: a study of international students with English as an additional language. Higher Education Research & Development, Abingdon, v. 34, n. 2, p. 420-435, 2015.), Denmark (ELLIOT; KOBAYASHI, 2019ELLIOT, Dely Lazarte; KOBAYASHI, Sofie. How can PhD supervisors play a role in bridging academic cultures? Teaching in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 24, n. 8, p. 911-929, 2019.) and Spain (PASTOR CESTEROS; PANDAR, 2017PASTOR CESTEROS, Susana; PANDOR, Jillian. El choque cultural académico del alumnado estadounidense en la universidad española. Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada, Concepción, v. 55, n. 2, p. 13-38, 2017.), among others (ELLIOT et al., 2016ELLIOT, Dely Lazarte et al. Hidden treasure: successful international doctoral students who found and harnessed the hidden curriculum. Oxford Review of Education, Abingdon, v. 42, n. 6, p. 733-748, 2016.). There is an increasingly relevant subset of studies in this line discussing how academics must also handle “culture shock” when teaching foreign students (JIANG et al., 2010JIANG, Xiaoli et al. Becoming and being an academic: the perspectives of Chinese staff in two research-intensive UK universities. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 35, n. 2, p. 155-170, 2010.; MENG, 2016MENG, Hui. Developing pedagogies for the genuine internationalisation of Australian research education: Chinese intellectual knowledge as alternative resources. Australian Journal of Education, New York, v. 60, n. 3, p. 257-274, 2016.; YANG, 2020YANG, Rui. Benefits and challenges of the international mobility of researchers: the Chinese experience. Globalisation, Societies and Education, Abingdon, v. 18, n. 1, p. 53-65, 2020.).

Unlike studies on the effects of the political economy on universities, these reviews tend to emphasize the imposing character of academic culture on foreign students and scholars for whom its assumptions are not self-evident. These excerpts illustrate this approach.

Students in transition to higher education (HE) face multiple challenges, including successful adaptation to the academic culture of the host institution (HELLSTÉN, 2002). Academic discourse, register practices and expectations can function as barriers to learning, as students struggle to decode their new environment. These transitional challenges are particularly marked for English as an additional language (EAL) students in their acculturation to a new HE setting. (WARNER; MILLER, 2015WARNER, Richard; MILLER, Julia. Cultural dimensions of feedback at an Australian university: a study of international students with English as an additional language. Higher Education Research & Development, Abingdon, v. 34, n. 2, p. 420-435, 2015., p. 420).

Friction stemming from unaligned expectations between supervisors and PhD students is widely reported, but such issues are arguably more intense in cross-cultural contexts (HOLBROOK et al., 2014; MCCORMACK, 2005; WOOLDERINK et al., 2015). Winchester-Seeto et al. (2014, p. 610) frame these cross-cultural issues as ‘intensifiers’, i.e. issues that affect the majority of PhD students are deemed to be more pronounced in cross-cultural contexts, thereby requiring adjustment and transition (see also FOTOVATIAN, 2012). (ELLIOT; KOBAYASHI, 2019ELLIOT, Dely Lazarte; KOBAYASHI, Sofie. How can PhD supervisors play a role in bridging academic cultures? Teaching in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 24, n. 8, p. 911-929, 2019., p. 2).

A third line of research, composed of 23 articles, analyzes undergraduate and graduate student diversification due to the expansion of access to higher education, representing a challenge for the academic culture of the sector’s institutions, especially on how the organization adapts to the demands of new students. Within this framework, particular attention has been given to how the traditional academic culture starts from assumptions that harm the possibilities of integration of students coming from low-income families, mainly because such culture prioritizes that knowledge that is closer to the habitus of the upper classes, an aspect reported in Australia (HABEL; WHITMAN, 2016HABEL, Chad; WHITMAN, Kirsty. Opening spaces of academic culture: doors of perception; heaven and hell. Higher Education Research & Development, Abingdon, v. 35, n. 1, p. 71-83, 2016.; HAGGIS, 2003HAGGIS, Tamsin. Constructing images of ourselves? A critical investigation into ‘approaches to learning’ research in higher education. British Educational Research Journal, Abingdon, v. 29, n. 1, p. 89-104, 2003.; MCKAY; DEVLIN, 2014MCKAY, Jade; DEVLIN, Marcia. ‘Uni has a different language … to the real world’: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Higher Education Research & Development, Abingdon, v. 33, n. 5, p. 949-961, 2014.), England (READ; ARCHER; LEATHWOOD, 2003READ, Barbara; ARCHER, Louise; LEATHWOOD, Carole. Challenging cultures? Student conceptions of ‘belonging’ and ‘isolation’ at a post-1992 university. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 28, n. 3, p. 261-277, 2003.) and the United States (SOLEM; SCHLEMPER, 2009SOLEM, Michael; LEE, Jenny; SCHLEMPER, Beth. ‘Departmental climate and student experiences in graduate geography programs’: research for enhancing departmanets anda graduate education. Research in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 50, n. 3, p. 268-292, 2009.). There are researches in a similar direction suggesting how the academic culture of higher education institutions’ programs should become more responsive to the needs of new students (BHOWMIK; KIM, 2018BHOWMIK, Subrata; KIM, Marcia. Preparing diverse learners for university: a strategy for teaching EAP students. Tesol Journal, Hoboken, v. 9, n. 3, p. 498-524, 2018.; COTTER; CLUKEY, 2019COTTER, Karen; Clukey, Lory. “Sink or swim”: an ethnographic study of nurse educators in academic culture. Nursing Education Perspectives, New York, v. 40, n. 3, p. 139-143, 2019.; ROXÅ; MÅRTENSSON; ALVETEG, 2011ROXÅ, Torgny; MÅRTENSSON, Katarina; ALVETEG, Mattias. Understanding and influencing teaching and learning cultures at university: a network approach. Higher Education, New York, v. 62, n. 1, p. 99-111, 2011.; SHACHAM; OD-COHEN, 2009SHACHAM, Miri; OD‐COHEN, Yehudit. Rethinking PhD learning incorporating communities of practice. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Abigdon, v. 46, n. 3, p. 279-292, 2009.), especially women (READ; KEHM, 2016READ, Barbara; KEHM, Barbara. Women as leaders of higher education institutions: a British–German comparison. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 41, n. 5, p. 815-827, 2016.; XU, 2008) and students from ethnic minority groups (GRANT, 2010GRANT, Barbara. The limits of ‘teaching and learning’: indigenous students and doctoral supervision. Teaching in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 15, n. 5, p. 505-517, 2010.). The process of disciplinary acculturation (MENDOZA, 2008MENDOZA, Pilar. Socialization to the academic culture: a framework of inquiry. Revista de Estudios Sociales, Bogotá, v. 31, p. 104-117, 2008.) of doctoral students in the university systems of Canada (SKAKNI, 2018SKAKNI, Isabelle. Doctoral studies as an initiatory trial: expected and taken-for-granted practices that impede PhD students’ progress. Teaching in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 23, n. 8, p. 927-944, 2018.), Spain (JIMÉNEZ MORA; MORENO BAYARDO; ORTIZ LEFORT, 2011JIMÉNEZ MORA, José Margarito; MORENO BAYARDO, María Guadalupe; ORTIZ LEFORT, Verónica. Culturas de los estudiantes de investigación en programas de doctorado en educación: reflejos de un campo en definición. Rmie, Ciudad de México, v. 16, n. 50, p. 919-933, 2011.), Switzerland (FALK et al., 2019FALK, Lena Ljungkrona et al. Doctoral students’ perceived working environment, obstacles and opportunities at a Swedish medical faculty: a qualitative study. BMC Medical Education, London, v. 19, n. 1, p. 1-9, 2019.) and Iran (HEMMATI; MAHDIE, 2020HEMMATI, Reza; MAHDIE, Arefeh. Iranian PhD students’ experiences of their learning environment and scholarly condition: a grounded theory study. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 45, n. 1, p. 187-208, 2020.), is also considered here.

In Latin America, the academic culture of universities in different countries and the extent to which it hinders or facilitates the learning of students with various socioeconomic, ethnic, and gender characteristics is observed in studies following this approach. There are studies on the characteristics of Mexican (TORRES-OLAVE, 2011TORRES-OLAVE, Blanca Minerva. “There is a world out there”: spatial imagination, agency, and academic culture in a Mexican university program. Comparative Education Review, Amherst, v. 55, n. 1, p. 30-55, 2011.), Colombian (CASTRO DAZA; NIÑO GUTIÉRREZ, 2014CASTRO DAZA, Diana de; NIÑO GUTIÉRREZ, Rosa María. Tendencias sobre las prácticas de lectura y escritura en la universidad colombiana: el punto de vista de los estudiantes. Revista Diversitas, Bogotá, v. 10, n. 1, p. 71-85, 2014.; RODRÍGUEZ et al., 2013RODRÍGUEZ, Alfonso et al. Lectura, escritura y calidad en la universidad colombiana. Zona Próxima, Barranquilla, v. 18, p. 2-17, 2013.), Brazilian (PASSOS, 2015PASSOS, Joana Célia dos. Relações raciais, cultura acadêmica e tensionamentos após ações afirmativas. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 31, n. 2, p. 155-182, 2015.), Argentine (BÖHM-CARRER; LUCERO, 2018BÖHM-CARRER, Fabiana; LUCERO, Adrian Edgardo. La alfabetización universitaria y el contacto con las fuentes de información, claves para el aprendizaje en la universidad. Revista Electrónica Educare, Heredia, v. 22, n. 2, p. 1-27, 2018.), among others (FERNÁNDEZ; WAINERMAN, 2015FERNÁNDEZ, Lorena; WAINERMAN, Catalina. La dirección de tesis de doctorado: ¿una práctica pedagógica? Perfiles Educativos, Ciudad de México, v. 37, n. 148, p. 156-171, 2015.), and how these expand or restrain the inclusion of students from socioeconomically underprivileged sectors in each country.

The imposing character of the academic culture is highlighted here, albeit in this case concerning its relation to the new demands of the students, as in the previous line of research. The fragments show this approach.

Newcomers to university, particularly those from LSES [low socioeconomic status] backgrounds, often lack familiarity with the general context of HEIs. This unfamiliarity can apply to the curriculum, courses, tasks, assessments and other aspects with which students are confronted. Compounding this challenge is the ‘invisible pedagogy’ (Bernstein, 1990), the implicit and unstated expectations of institutions, the specialist discourses (whether across subjects or disciplines), the ‘institutional habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1990) and the overall academic culture that students unfamiliar with university can have no way of knowing or understanding without assistance (Lawrence, 2005). (MCKAY; DEVLIN, 2014MCKAY, Jade; DEVLIN, Marcia. ‘Uni has a different language … to the real world’: demystifying academic culture and discourse for students from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Higher Education Research & Development, Abingdon, v. 33, n. 5, p. 949-961, 2014., p. 952).

Training as a researcher is a process of enculturation, of insertion into a community of practice, in this case the academic community (Wenger, 1998; Hasrati, 2005); from this community students must learn not only the specific task that summons them but also its norms, value systems and customs. (FERNANDEZ; WAINERMAN, 2015FERNÁNDEZ, Lorena; WAINERMAN, Catalina. La dirección de tesis de doctorado: ¿una práctica pedagógica? Perfiles Educativos, Ciudad de México, v. 37, n. 148, p. 156-171, 2015., p. 160).

A final line of research on academic culture, composed of 24 articles, centers on the analysis of internal reform processes in higher education institutions and how these modify the values that guide the actions of students, academics, and administrators. Under this perspective, emphasis- has been given to the processes of internationalization and the third mission mechanisms in American (BYSTYDZIENSKI, 2017BYSTYDZIENSKI, Jill et al. The leadership role of college deans and department chairs in academic culture change. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 42, n. 12, p. 2301-2315, 2017.; FELDMAN; DESROCHERS, 2004FELDMAN, Maryann; DESROCHERS, Pierre. Truth for its own sake: academic culture and technology transfer at Johns Hopkins University. Minerva, New York, v. 42, p. 105-126, 2004.), Korean (SHIN; LEE, 2015SHIN, Jung Cheol; LEE, Soo Jeung. Evolution of research universities as a national research system in Korea: accomplishments and challenges. Higher Education, New York, v. 70, n. 2, p. 187-202, 2015.), and English (MUSTAFA et al., 2018MUSTAFA, Khurram et al. Understanding barriers for research involvement among paediatric trainees: a mixed methods study. BMC Medical Education, London, v. 18, n. 1, p. 1-8, 2018.) universities. An additional issue explored here corresponds to the observation of the impact of new technologies on the academic culture and the relationship between academics and students (CUESTA et al., 2016CUESTA, Marta et al. Using Facebook as a co-learning community in higher education. Learning, Media and Technology, Abingdon, v. 41, n. 1, p. 55-72, 2016.; YANG, 2015YANG, Rui. Reassessing China’s higher education development: a focus on academic culture. Asia Pacific Education Review, New York, v. 16, n. 4, p. 527-535, 2015.; XU; REES, 2016XU, Jingjing; REES, Terri. Distance learning course design expectations in China and the United Kingdom. American Journal of Distance Education, Abingdon, v. 30, n. 4, p. 250-263, 2016.). Similarly, organizational reform processes in the sector’s institutions have also been analyzed and how face resistance from the academic culture of their members in the U.S. (BERTRAM GALLANT, 2007BERTRAM Gallant, Tricia. The complexity of integrity culture change: a case study of a liberal arts college. The Review of Higher Education, Baltimore, v. 30, n. 4, p. 391-411, 2007.; EDDY; HART, 2012EDDY, Pamela; HART, Jeni. Faculty in the hinterlands: cultural anticipation and cultural reality. Higher Education, New York, v. 63, n. 6, p. 751-769, 2012.; HARRIS, 2011HARRIS, Genevieve. Teacher educators under surveillance at a religious university. Teachers and Teaching, Abingdon, v. 17, n. 5, p. 545-558, 2011.; KEZAR, BERTRAM GALLANT; LESTER, 2011KEZAR, Adrianna; BERTRAM GALLANT, Tricia; LESTER, Jaime. Everyday people making a difference on college campuses: the tempered grassroots leadership tactics of faculty and staff. Studies in Higher Education, Abingdon, v. 36, n. 2, p. 129-151, 2011.), Australia (HARMAN, 2002HARMAN, Kay. Merging divergent campus cultures into coherent educational communities: Challenges for higher education leaders. Higher Education, New York, v. 44, p. 91-114, 2002.), New Zealand (CHILVERS et al., 2018CHILVERS, Louise et al. The reality of ‘middle’ management roles: a case study of the Associate Head of School experience in a New Zealand University. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Abgingdon, v. 40, n. 5, p. 430-441, 2018.), Turkey (GIZIR; SIMSEK, 2005GIZIR, Sidika; SIMSEK, Hasan. Communication in an academic context. Higher Education, New York, v. 50, n. 2, p. 197-221, 2005.), Spain (ÁLVAREZ ROJO et al., 2008ÁLVAREZ ROJO, Victor et al. Aproximación a la cultura de un centro universitario. Revista de Educación, Madrid, v. 346, p. 139-166, 2008.; BASIR et al., 2017BASIR, Siti Arni et al. The influence of academic culture on quality management system ISO 9001 maintenance within Malaysian universities. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, Abingdon, v. 39, n. 3, p. 320-340, 2017.) and Lebanon (RISK et al., 2012RISK, Nadya et al. Epistemological beliefs in science: an exploratory study of Lebanese university students’ epistemologies. International Journal of Science and Mathematics Education, Dordrecht, v. 10, p. 473-496, 2012.), hindering organizational change and escalating conflicts with their academics.

In the Latin American case, changes in university values have been examined in response to reform processes in Uruguay (LANDONI, 2008LANDONI, Pablo. Isomorfismo y calidad: Redefiniendo los espacios públicos y privados en la educación superior uruguaya. Revista Uruguaya de Ciencia Política, Montevideo, v. 17, n. 1, p. 183-202, 2008.), Venezuela (ALBORNOZ; JIMÉNEZ, 2008ALBORNOZ, Orlando; JIMÉNEZ, Elsi. Ciencia y desarrollo: evolución de la cultura y comunidad académica en Venezuela durante el gobierno de la revolución bolivariana socialista. Revista Facultad de Ciencias Económicas, Bogotá, v. 16, n. 1, p. 233-267, 2008.), and Colombia (CALDERÓN HERNÁNDEZ; JIMÉNEZ ZAPATA, 2018CALDERÓN HERNÁNDEZ, Gregorio; Jiménez Zapata, Yudy Andrea. Factores culturales que inciden en la creación de spin-off universitarias: un estudio en una universidad pública colombiana. Estudios Gerenciales, Cali, p. 320-335, 2018.). Following a similar approach to the aforementioned cultural analysis of new technologies, the study addresses the impact of the digitization of teaching and research on academic culture in Brazilian (GÓMEZ SILVA; DA SILVA BEZERRA, 2018GÓMEZ SILVA, Lebiam Tamar; BEZERRA, Irinalda da Silva. Hibridações da cultura acadêmica com a cibercultura: análise das práticas acadêmicas no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 34, n. 3, p. 1-27, 2018.) and Mexican (DORANTES; AGUILAR, 2019DORANTES Y AGUILAR, Gerardo. La práctica de producir y difundir contenidos académicos en, por y para la red entre los académicos de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. Revista Mexicana de Ciencias Políticas y Sociales, Ciudad de México, v. 64, n. 236, p. 355-382, 2019.) universities. A subgroup of these studies examines how academics have played a central role in fostering change in university academic culture through the diffusion, translation, and subsequent adoption of values in Argentina and Brazil (ARAÚJO, 2019ARAÚJO, Marta Maria de. As cidadelas das pesquisas de história da educação no Brasil. Revista Brasileira de História da Educação, Maringá, v. 19, p. 1-18, 2019.; CARLI, 2013CARLI, Sandra. El viaje de conocimiento en las humanidades y las ciencias sociales: un estudio de caso sobre profesores universitarios en la Argentina durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX. Historia de la Educación Anuario, Buenos Aires, v. 14, n. 2, p. 1-38, 2013.).

As the following remarks reflect, academic culture is here interpreted through its relationship with organizational reform processes. Emphasis is placed on how academic culture, especially regarding its effects on students, academics, and administrators’ ideas and actions, facilitates or hinders institutional change.

Culture change requires organizational leaders to recognize that the culture is problematic and ‘have the motivation and skill to change the cultural process’ (SCHEIN, 1991, p. 323). First, such change requires that the leaders understand the values and assumptions that are not working (SCHEIN, 1991, p. 324). Second, effective leaders must introduce and implement new concepts, values, and assumptions (SCHEIN, 1991, p. 325), and do so not in a top-down manner, but using a collaborative, participatory approach whereby organizational members have autonomy, responsibility, and opportunities to provide and receive feedback. (ASTIN; LELAND, 1991). (BYSTYDZIENSKI, 2016, p. 2-3).

The main limitations identified relate to the institutional technological infrastructure and the power relations established between faculty and student learners. Cyberculture practices tend to be constituted through more horizontal and democratic power relations, according to which information and knowledge are produced and shared from all to all in the virtual network. Therefore, the resignification of the curriculum from the horizontalization of power relations seems to us a fruitful point of contact to hybridize academic culture with cyberculture. (GÓMEZ SILVA; DA SILVA BEZERRA, 2018GÓMEZ SILVA, Lebiam Tamar; BEZERRA, Irinalda da Silva. Hibridações da cultura acadêmica com a cibercultura: análise das práticas acadêmicas no ambiente virtual de aprendizagem Moodle. Educação em Revista, Belo Horizonte, v. 34, n. 3, p. 1-27, 2018., p. 23).

Discussion

The analysis of the main lines of research on academic culture - the impact of changes in the political economy, the challenges of international exchange of students and academics, the implicit biases in the dominant academic culture, and the processes of organizational reform - reveals the complexity of this concept.

Regardless, it should be pointed out that the analysis of the available literature suggests the existence of a series of consensus among the articles examined. Indeed, the specialized literature review indicates that academic culture is a normatively charged concept, despite being presented as neutral and naturalized in the main activities of universities (teaching, research, and the third mission). The literature on this subject and, especially, literature specialized in the obstacles faced by international students and those coming from socioeconomic contexts with different orientations from those prevailing in the dominant culture, underline academic culture’s imposing and potentially restrictive nature.

A second consensus among researchers in this field is that culture could have an empowering effect, especially for university members whose academic values coincide with those of the dominant culture. As the respective literature on organizational changes and guiding values of universities suggests, the culture of institutions facilitates communication among academics, students, and administrators who share their premises, establishing a common ground on relevant issues. The literature on the effects of changes in the political economy on university culture also underlines the advantages of institution members whose orientation coincides with these transformations.

Finally, based on the reviewed literature on academic culture, it is possible to identify a third attribute of academic culture consistent with specialized studies in the area of analysis: its systemic character. The university culture exceeds then the realm of students’, academics,’ and administrators’ opinions on the functioning of the institution to operate instead as a set of implicit rules (and then ambiguous and subjected to interpretation) that serve to enable members of the institution to give meaning to their actions and those of others.

Nevertheless, despite being present in most research on the academic culture of higher education institutions, these analytical premises have not resulted in the generalization of a conceptual approach for the analysis of this type of phenomenon. On the contrary, descriptive studies prevail, distantly followed by conceptual essays and then by empirical research on the academic culture of higher education institutions rather than research informed by an explicit theoretical paradigm.

Research in higher education worldwide and Latin America, in particular, have similar attributes. While their quantity and thematic variety have expanded significantly in recent decades, theoretically guided studies still represent a minor segment of the total number of studies in the field (BRUNNER et al., 2019aBRUNNER, José Joaquín et al. Centro y márgenes: análisis del capitalismo académico en la literatura angloamericana y en español y portugués. Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas, Tempe, v. 27, n. 79, p. 1-35, 2019a.; SCOTT; GALLACHER; PARRY, 2017SCOTT, Peter; GALLACHER, Jim; PARRY, Gareth. Reflections and conclusions. In: SCOTT, Peter; GALLACHER, Jim; PARRY, Gareth (org.). New languages and landscapes of higher education. Oxford: Oxford University, 2017. p. 256-264.).

As shown by the counting of publications on academic culture issues and the bibliographic review of the definitions of academic culture used in the specialized literature on higher education in the last twenty years, both worldwide and in Latin America, even though this is a field that is receiving increasing interest, it has not been yet associated with a more extensive conceptual debate. On the one hand, the absence of conceptual approaches in this area of study reduces the possibility of advancing reflective approaches to the academic culture of universities. Such an approach is unavoidable to overcome normative approaches that evaluate the adequacy of academic culture to a predefined set of normative expectations. On the other hand, the omission of conceptual discussion hinders the collection of contributions from other disciplines dedicated to studying culture -both within and outside the field of higher education studies- reducing the possibility of developing comparative analyses and, thus, strengthening this research fields.

Conclusions

This report reviews the definitions of academic culture in the specialized literature, identifying its main analysis perspectives. Four approaches are particularly relevant: the impact of changes in the political economy, the challenges of international exchange of students and scholars, the implicit biases in the dominant academic culture, and the processes of organizational reform. These approaches, despite their differences, share two fundamental ideas: first, academic culture can have a socially enabling or constraining character depending on whether or not its constituents share or not its premises and, second, academic culture has a systemic nature that exceeds its interpretation by one or more groups in universities.

Three research lines seem to be particularly promising in this context. On the one hand, it is necessary to advance case studies in specific areas of knowledge. Since the main differences in academic culture are the result of the dynamic of the disciplines, more attention should be pay to the different norms in different knowledge areas (MARGINSON; RHOADES, 2002MARGINSON, Simon; RHOADES, Gary. Beyond national states, markets, and systems of higher education: a glonacal agency heuristic. Higher Education, New York, n. 43, p. 281-309, 2002.).

Second, it is necessary to recognize that academic culture does not operate in a vacuum but varies according to its relationship with the rest of the organizational field and the political economy and governance of the national system. Acknowledging this would open the door for comparative research to determine whether the academic culture of a particular area of knowledge acquires idiosyncratic attributes due to its relationship to changes in local and national higher education systems or whether there is a greater homogeneity independent of the particular context. This area of study - informed by the proposed concept of the academic culture at the institutional level - allows further exploration of a debate currently underway in the field of higher education studies: to define whether there is a growing convergence between institutions, the organizational and discursive effects of this convergence or whether, on the contrary, even at the level of expectations regarding teaching, research, and dissemination, is it possible to appreciate a greater diversification between national higher education systems and institutions, (LABRAÑA; VANDERSTRAETEN, 2020LABRAÑA, Julio; VANDERSTRAETEN, Raf. Functional differentiation and university expansion in Chile. Social and Education History, Barcelona, v. 9, n. 3, p. 252-277, 2020.).

Finally, it is necessary to complement this review of the state of the art of academic culture by considering research in scientific repositories other than WoS and SciELO as well as other publications such as books and book chapters, in non-indexed journal articles, presentations at conferences, and theses. These scientific communication strategies are fundamental in the context of the academic debate in Latin America; they could thus provide more insight into the current discussions about the relationship between culture and institutions of higher education (BRUNNER et al., 2019aBRUNNER, José Joaquín et al. Centro y márgenes: análisis del capitalismo académico en la literatura angloamericana y en español y portugués. Archivos Analíticos de Políticas Educativas, Tempe, v. 27, n. 79, p. 1-35, 2019a.).

As we have explored, the study of academic culture has fostered for many decades the development of the field of higher education studies and its relationship with the conceptual reflection in social sciences. While today it is a topic that is receiving increasing empirical attention, especially in Latin America, it still suffers from a lack of a consensual description capable of articulating a distinctive line of research. Hopefully, this article may have contributed in this direction based on the bibliographical review of the use of this concept in higher education studies.

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  • *
    English version by Ricardo Reyes Reyes.
  • 1
    - This study was supported by ANID-Chile, Fondecyt project 1170960.

Publication Dates

  • Publication in this collection
    09 Sept 2022
  • Date of issue
    2022

History

  • Received
    10 July 2020
  • Reviewed
    29 Sept 2020
  • Accepted
    20 Oct 2020
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