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EdTech-mediated outsourcing and casualisation of academic labour: Toward a research agenda

Authors :
Mariya Ivancheva
Aline Courtois
Source :
Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, Vol 18, Iss 1, Pp 65-82 (2024)
Publication Year :
2024
Publisher :
Pluto Journals, 2024.

Abstract

Located at the intersection of scholarship on critical higher education (HE), the casualisation of the academic workforce and studies of digitalisation and online platforms in Higher Education (HE), this article examines the impact of online programme management companies (OPMs) on academic labour. OPMs partner with universities to provide core teaching functions while relying on the labour of increasingly casualised, often outsourced academics. We use a composite case study to illustrate how OPMs work in partnerships with universities to reorganise academic work. We discuss this model vis-a-vis the theoretical concepts in the digital HE, platform labour and sociology of work literature, elaborating on how the new forms of casualised labour in HE undergo real subsumption by technology-mediated programmes operated by OPMs. On this foundation, we discuss the possible implications and draw out questions for future research and trade union activity, two arenas where, we argue, more attention needs to be paid urgently to casualisation and the outsourcing of teaching through digital platform-mediated programmes.

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
17456428 and 1745641X
Volume :
18
Issue :
1
Database :
Directory of Open Access Journals
Journal :
Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
edsdoj.31bb89581054ccf8331df8fc53e5a69
Document Type :
article
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.13169/workorgalaboglob.18.1.0065