Stratification and Segmentation of Academic Work under the Faculty Employment Reform in Chinese Higher Education
With the rise of new managerialism,higher education institutions in the Chinese Mainland have initiated important reform in the faculty employment system.Such systemic change has affected academic work profoundly.Based on the findings of a questionnaire survey and an analysis of relevant policy documents,this paper argues that academic work in China has been stratified among different institution,discipline and academic status,thus causing considerable segmentation.Taking reference of an ongoing international discussion on academic work,especially Boyer's four types of scholarship,the paper concludes that stratification and segmentation of academic work in the Chinese Mainland have favored the scholarship of discovery while scholarship of teaching and application have been marginalized.Scholarship of integration remains an area in need of further development.Within such a structure,academic work is in need of balance and cohesiveness.Problems of the present structure can be attributed to competing demands on academic work as articulated by the state,the market and the academic oligarchy.Each party has its own interests to be served by the academics: basic/theoretical research projects,scholarly journal publications and monographs are emphasized by the state;involvement in the applied research projects is driven by the market,and teaching activities on campus are bounded to the academic oligarchy.Therefore,it is essential to construct a relative integrate academic view and related supportive institutions for the development of China's higher education.