Chapter 2 Intellectual Work and Knowledge Production

Abstract

This chapter focuses on researchers as knowledge workers in higher education in England as an illustration of what Katznelson (2003, p. 189) identifies as the ‘professional scholar’ undertaking intellectual work as a public intellectual. I begin by examining the challenges to intellectual work and its location in a university, particular from the media and the popularity of what Bourdieu calls Le Fast Talkers ¹ – those who talk a lot but have nothing much to say. After drawing out the tensions within knowledge production, I then locate the analysis of what it means to do research in a period of education policymaking in England between 1997 and 2010, when New Labour called on researchers to produce evidence to support radical reforms. In particular, I argue that school effectiveness and school improvement (SESI) knowledge workers in Schools of Education in higher education in England are an interesting case for investigating the public intellectual positioning as ‘detached attachment’ (Melzner, 2003, p. 4), particularly through their attachment to New Labour governments and the subsequent detachment following a change of government in May 2010.

Citation

Gunter, H.M. (2012), "Chapter 2 Intellectual Work and Knowledge Production", Fitzgerald, T., White, J. and Gunter, H.M. (Ed.) Hard Labour? Academic Work and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education (International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Vol. 7), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 23-40. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1479-3628(2012)0000007003