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This chapter presents some basic concepts on time studies and discusses what a temporal approach can offer for higher education research. Being an invariable constituent of life, time structures and organizes activities and processes in higher education, covering all of its levels and functions. Furthermore, the current policy agenda that emphasizes the need for higher education to accelerate innovation flows, and to speed up the production of new knowledge and workers, accentuates the importance of the temporal perspective. The chapter examines the dominant, taken-for-granted conception of time – clock time – which involves a linear, quantitative, cumulative, homogenized, abstract and decontextualized conception of time. The core features of clock time are described by the four Cs put forward by Barbara Adam: creation, commodification, colonization and control of time. It is argued that, in the current digital, post-modern era, social acceleration reshapes and transforms the nature of clock time, which results in compression of time, shrinking future and extended present, all manifest in the overall speeding-up of life. In addition, a temporal lens for analysing higher education is presented, with examples from empirical studies on time and temporalities in academic work and identity building.

Considers the changes which occurred during the 1990s in Swedish universities focusing on the way in which these have affected the work situation for lecturers from a gender, management and organization perspective. Uses in‐depth interviews with male and female lecturers in junior and middle‐management positions at one particular university. Explores the way in which women and men conform to the stereotype of “abstract worker” on which the new public management appears to rely. Suggests that this stereotype has loyalty to the employer as the most important priority with children and family commitments counting heavily against those with career aspirations.