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This paper probes the resonances between neoliberal education reforms and the wizarding world of Harry Potter. This interdisciplinary research project aligns the sociologies of literature and education to reveal how the neoliberal reforms found within the Global Education Reform Movement [GERM] manifest within popular culture, and how popular culture naturalizes, frames and patrols particular modes of discourse about school, teaching and learning. This paper creates a discursive dance between neoliberal theories of educational reform and the popular cultural educational reforms in Harry Potter. This paper demonstrates that the Harry Potter series provides ways of understanding the impact of these education reforms on teachers, students, and the everyday workings of a school.

Bullying in higher education institutions amongst staff is an evolving area of research that has been examined from multiple perspectives, but significant scholarly voids remain. This paper examines the views of 20 faculty deans and their experiences with bullying and the hostility of workplace incivility. The paper examines what bullying looks like in contrast to existing scholarship which is frequently focused on the issues of defining the practice, and regularly examines hierarchical/descending bullying based on power dynamics. The study also evaluates these experiences in a field of research that is usually systematic in its data as studies have been designed to influence policies relating to bullying and codes of conduct. This paper's focus on bullying and acts of incivility toward leaders at the deans' level augments these existing areas of research, provides examples of what acts bullying and incivility can include from deans' perspectives, and the medical, personal, and family repercussions of the victims.

Internationally, changes to university funding arrangements have put pressure on the workloads of tenured academic staff and increased the reliance on casual academics to backfill teaching and research positions. Limited research has focused on the effects of casualisation on research academics and the institutions in which they work. This paper draws on interviews with 26 contract researchers, who have worked in the US, UK, and Australia. Drawing on the construct of 'Othering', identified in our interviews we explore the work of academics employed casually or on contract. Using a Foucauldian lens to make visible and disrupt regimes of truth about academic work, we found that there are numerous ways in which institutional discourses and practices marginalise casual academics and conceal the challenges they face. We argue that the disruption of dominant discourses about academic work is one way of supporting academics whose employment is insecure.

This paper examines the volume and type of anonymous comments academics receive in student evaluations of courses and teaching (SETs) at the 16,000 higher education institutions that collect this data at the end of each teaching period. Existing research has increasingly pointed to the negative issues of student surveys, but very little research has focused on the volume, type, and impact of anonymous student comments on academics. This paper analyses the survey results of 674 academics to inform higher education leaders and the sector more widely of the amount and type of abusive comments academics are receiving. The work also demonstrates that the highest volume, most derogatory, and most threatening abuse is directed towards women academics and those academics from marginalised groups. The paper finds that previous estimates of the rate and severity of abusive comments that academics receive, and the impact to academics' wellbeing, mental health, and career progression, have underestimated what is taking place. The paper argues that many universities are failing to protect their staff from this abuse, and the prejudice nature of SET results, which will continue to have a negative impact on the career progression of marginalised academics - a major flaw in a sector that prides itself on diversity and inclusion.

Across the international higher education sector, existing studies highlight that student evaluations of courses and teaching are biased and prejudiced towards academics and can cause mental distress. Yet student evaluation data is often used as part of faculty hiring, firing, promotion, award and grant decisions. That a data source known to be prejudiced and biased is used for employment and career decisions raises questions around whether these university policies are discriminatory towards university staff. This paper investigates these questions "via" an analysis of: a) what are the common university policies relating to evaluation data collection and its use, b) are these policies leaving academics exposed to discrimination, and c) what types of policies may be leaving universities liable to legal ramifications due to non-compliance with anti-discrimination and workplace health and safety laws? The work demonstrates why most institutions are operating outside the bounds of the law, highlights to academics what types of policies may fail to meet discrimination and workplace laws, and informs university leaders of the actions that may be exposing their universities to legal implications for failing to protect their staff.

Over the last forty years, Australasian researchers have witnessed problems and negative trends relating to academics and students from marginalised groups operating within the higher education sector. This article demonstrates that these researchers have become increasingly aware of the need for more equitable practices in higher education. However, this has occurred at a time when, though universities have grown, there continues to be an undercurrent of privilege that prevents real systemic change in the system. The article examines Australasian research across numerous fields of marginalisation through a Bourdieusian lens to investigate why marginalised groups have faced issues within the system, why improvements have continued to be made, but also, why these improvements have not been enough to prompt genuine change -- despite decades of effort by social justice researchers. The article demonstrates to academics, researchers, students, administrators, and policy makers how for all the progress that has been made in making universities more equitable places for academics and students, some backwards steps have occurred. The article finally highlights that for universities re-evaluating their priorities in a COVID-19 world, this is an opportune time to make sure that systemic changes to include people from marginalised backgrounds begin to be enacted.

This paper analyses the current research regarding student evaluations of courses and teaching. The article argues that student evaluations are influenced by racist, sexist and homophobic prejudices, and are biased against discipline and subject area. This paper's findings are relevant to policymakers and academics as student evaluations are undertaken in over 16,000 higher education institutions at the end of each teaching period. The article's purpose is to demonstrate to the higher education sector that the data informing student surveys is flawed and prejudiced against those being assessed. Evaluations have been shown to be heavily influenced by student demographics, the teaching academic's culture and identity, and other aspects not associated with course quality or teaching effectiveness. Evaluations also include increasingly abusive comments which are mostly directed towards women and those from marginalised groups, and subsequently make student surveys a growing cause of stress and anxiety for these academics. Yet, student evaluations are used as a measure of performance and play a role in hiring, firing and promotional decisions. Student evaluations are openly prejudiced against the sector's most underrepresented academics and they contribute to further marginalising the same groups universities declare to protect, value and are aiming to increase in their workforces.

Research has noted an increase in negative workplace behaviours in the higher education sector between leaders and staff. A component of this change has been attributed to the managerial shift associated with faculty leadership roles. Positions such as dean are now sometimes filled via evidence of management experience when traditionally these roles were awarded to senior academics. This paper argues that the workplace divides between leaders employed due to management expertise (and with less regard to their research accomplishments) and academics has created new fault lines in institutional hierarchies that are impacting on intra-faculty relationships as each group adjusts to contemporary institutional management strategies. Bourdieu's notions of habitus, capital, and field are used to dissect these fault lines and hierarchical structures to assist in understanding why the leadership shift is causing divides, if the issue is likely to continue creating rifts, and if the divide can be repaired.

Current research suggests partnerships between universities and schools create learning advantages for pre-service and beginning teachers while opening new research avenues and school relationships for academics and universities. This paper argues that these findings are often based on a business-orientated definition of 'partnership' and originate from studies that examine partnerships which are frequently based in North America and Europe. Thus, the existing studies often focus on partnerships that create learning advantages, but only in profitable or scalable ways that might lead to formal or enhanced collaborations. This paper critically examines the literature and problematises their findings amongst four case studies of partnerships of various sizes and levels of bureaucracy to determine if the literature's broader conclusions remain true when applied to less business-driven views of partnerships that consider 'partnership' in a broader definition. The paper makes a scholarly contribution by informing the audience of what benefits can come to those involved in school and university partnerships of different sizes, and when not preoccupied with creating partnerships for immediate or potential profit.

The Australian government now mandates initial teacher education (ITE) providers to form partnerships with schools in order to maintain accreditation. The emphasis on partnerships as the crucial means of improving ITE is not new, and a body of literature from the Australian context describes a vast number of partnerships that have been enacted over the past few decades. In this literature, however, the specific work arrangements and practices of teacher educators are generally overlooked. And yet, it is the work of teacher educators that is critical in initiating and sustaining these partnerships. This paper seeks to address this disparity by employing the theoretical framework of practice architecture to consider the role of the teacher educator in partnership work. We have found that the ways in which the work of teacher educators is constrained in cultural-discursive, material-economic and social-political domains significantly impact the possibility of "enduring" partnerships with schools.

This paper aims to contribute to the literature on dean's leadership and explores the impact of corporate managerial practices and neoliberal ideology on the mindset and actions of 15 deans and heads of school in eight universities in Australia. We offer perspectives of leaders as emotional individuals who on a daily basis attempt to live up to and manage the contractions of their belief and role expectations. These leaders share their everyday experiences, struggles and vulnerabilities in restructuring their organisational unit to address the strategic goals of the university. We draw upon research on the emotional labour of leadership in higher education, the ethics of disrupting culture, and critical hope to provide insight into how these leaders move their faculty or school toward an imagined future and the impact on this work on their wellbeing.

Academic networks have been found to play a significant role in career trajectory via employment opportunities, publishing openings, or being alerted to prospects not widely advertised. These results are reflective of Bourdieu's notion that social capital can see an individual's position within a field (in this article the field of academia) increase due to their network's aggregate resources, which can be leveraged and see them attain success they may not have been able to achieve without their network's capital and collective field position. This study surveyed more than 100 working academics and found that most participated in some form of academic networking. This article's significance comes from exploring the lived experiences that have been identified by academics engaging in active network building. The work demonstrates the significant benefits that can result from being involved in well-positioned academic networks, but also reveals how networks are viewed as methods that can subvert merit-based achievements within the field.