La professione accademica in Italia. Aspetti problemi e confronti nel contesto europeo

by Rostan Michele (ed.)

Looking at recent years’ newspapers, magazines and other publications we have the impression that academics’ reputation is not high. Seldom, though, criticism and negative assessments are based on deep and large scope analyses and, even more rarely, academics themselves are directly consulted on their work through the techniques that the social sciences make available. In order to fill the gap, a survey on the academic profession in Italy has been carried out in the context of a international comparative research project called «The Changing Academic Profession». In a period of changes both for Italian universities and the academic work, several aspects of the academic profession have been academics’ education, academic work and academics’ job satisfaction, the future of the academic profession, teaching activities and academics’ views on recent reforms in the field of didactics, research activities and funding, academics’ scientific production and its assessment, the relationship between academics and their university, academics’ influence on the organisational life of their institution, and the control over academic work through evaluation procedures. Besides shedding light on both similarities and differences within the Italian academic profession, the inquiry – thanks to the international data collected through The Changing Academic Profession Survey – offers the opportunity to compare Italian academics with those of other European countries.

192 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2011