“I Should be able to Live My Best Life:” On Making Meaning of Academic Survival

Casado Pérez J. F., Aksoy R. N.

Journal of Higher Education, 2025 (SSCI, Scopus) identifier identifier

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.1080/00221546.2025.2577621
  • Dergi Adı: Journal of Higher Education
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Scopus, Academic Search Premier, Periodicals Index Online, American History and Life, Applied Science & Technology Source, EBSCO Education Source, Education Abstracts, Educational research abstracts (ERA), ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Gender Studies Database, MLA - Modern Language Association Database, Religion and Philosophy Collection
  • Anahtar Kelimeler: academic survival, Institutional life, institutional oppression, operative intentionality
  • Yıldız Teknik Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

For minoritized faculty, the academic profession can be no less characterized by encounters with oppression than their private lives. We deployed critical phenomenology to understand what participants’ (N = 8) meaning making of institutional oppression reveals about their movement from professional disillusionment to reengagement. Our critical hermeneutic analysis of in-depth phenomenological profiles produced three key transformations in participants’ pursuit of academic survival: embodied experience, boundary-drawing, and narrative self-definition. We discuss implications for bystander intervention, counterspaces, and life-course mentorship.