Inledning till Lewis A. Cosers bok "Giriga institutioner. Sociologiska studier av totalt engagemang"

Vad händer med ett yrke när det genomgår en snabb och genomgripande akademisering? Vad händer med gruppen av yrkesutövare, med deras utbildning och arbetsuppgifter, med deras villkor och position på arbetsmarknaden? För fyrtiofem år sedan fördes utbildningen av laboratorieassistenter in i högskolesystemet. Därpå följde ett komprimerat och dramatiskt akademiserings- och professionaliseringsförlopp: utbildningen förlängdes och blev en generell examen, yrkesgruppen bytte namn till biomedicinska analytiker, blev en yrkesexamen och en skyddad yrkestitel och till sist ett legitimationsyrke. Parallellt med allt detta har de biomedicinska analytikerna sedan 1990-talet disputerat i en omfattning som vida överstiger vad man skulle förvänta sig av en profession av dess storlek. Från att ha varit fotnoter i andras vetenskapliga arbeten är motsvarande var femtonde yrkesutövare forskarutbildad idag. Samtidigt är det en öppen fråga huruvida den akademiska förtätningen av utbildningen slår igenom i alumnernas yrkesliv. Har akademisk förtätning och legitimation inneburit förändringar i arbetsinnehåll, arbetsvillkor och karriärförlopp – och i så fall i vilka avseenden? Från professionsteoretisk synpunkt är de biomedicinska analytikernas yrkesöde ett strategiskt fall för förståelsen av förändring – och frånvaro av förändring – under dramatiska akademiseringsförlopp. Undersökningen bygger på tolv intervjuer med yrkesverksamma biomedicinska analytiker, historisk dokumentation, en enkätstudie omfattande två kohorter biomedicinska analytiker, samt en analys av diskussioner om BMA i fackpress.

What happens to an aspiring profession as it is subject to rapid, pervasive academisation? How does it shape the professional group, their education and work tasks, their conditions and position in the labour market? In 1977, the professional formation of Swedish laboratory assistants was transferred to the higher education sector. They were part of a wider set of education programs, including nurses, occupational therapists, teachers, preschool teachers, and leisure time pedagogues – all of which had previously been trained in separate institutions outside of academia. Yet, the laboratory assistants stand out in other respects. First, laboratory assistant had long been a female dominated technical specialty, and it continued to be so. Second, their entrance into academia marked the beginning of a sharper academic turn than in most professions – evident in the surge of the number of biomedical scientists with a doctor’s degree. A very modest trickle of seven PhDs in the 1980s was followed by hundreds in the decades to follow, so that their total number currently equals every fifteenth practitioner. In the same period, the professional group secured an occupational monopoly, first in the guise of a protected title and then as a professional license. In this paper, we draw on survey and interview materials, as wells as historical documents and trade press, to analyze whether and in what respects this has brought changes in terms of work content, work conditions and career trajectories for the group. 

First, we present a close and detailed analysis of the changing composition and changing roles of the key sections of the administrative corps of Swedish universities. We use the source data that each university and university college each year must report to Statistics Sweden.

Secondly, we discuss the implications of the changing composition and widened roles of the administrative corps, esp. regarding its new and more encompassing qualifications. These changes make it possible for the governing body of the university to use the more qualified administrative corps to govern and control the academic profession, the scholars, and the teachers, in more precise and sophisticated ways.

The purpose of this article is to describe the composition and internal stratification of the university teaching staff at Swedish higher education institutions. We show that four fault lines shape the higher education field in the 21st century. These are, firstly, the resource hierarchies both between old and new higher education institutions and between the fields of science, and, secondly, the prestige hierarchy between research and teaching staff categories and between the senior lecturers’conditions of existence in the center of the system and its periphery. We argue that it is necessary to analyze how these stratification lines have come into place to understand how they work and interact with each other, and how they have partially reinforced each other, but at the same time have left room for a transformation of the university teachers’ conditions across the university system.

The Academic Profession in Swedish Higher Education: Continuity and Change inthe New Century

The purpose of this article is to describe the composition and internal stratificationof the university teaching staff at Swedish higher education institutions. We showthat four fault lines shape the higher education field in the 21st century. These are,firstly, the resource hierarchies both between old and new higher education institutionsand between the fields of science, and, secondly, the prestige hierarchybetween research and teaching staff categories and between the senior lecturers’conditions of existence in the center of the system and its periphery. We argue thatit is necessary to analyze how these stratification lines have come into place to understandhow they work and interact with each other, and how they have partially reinforcedeach other, but at the same time have left room for a transformation of theuniversity teachers’ conditions across the university system.

Det svenska universitetssystemet har vuxit till att bli en omfattande och komplex institution. Expansionen har inte bara gällt antalet studenter, lärare och forskare utan också den administrativa ram de verkar inom och de personalkategorier som ingår däri. Men förhållandet mellan lärarkår och administratörer präglas inte sällan av misstro. I sin artikel vill Ola Agevall och Gunnar Olofsson tränga bortom parternas spontana föreställningsvärldar och se hur universitetsadministrationens sammansättning och omfång faktiskt förändrats under perioden 2001–2018. De pekar på hur tillväxten av administratörer i huvudsak håller jämna steg med tillväxten av lärare och forskare. Däremot har administratörsgruppen ändrat karaktär – vilket kommer till uttryck i vilka delar av den som ökat respektive minskat, liksom vad som hänt med gruppens utbildningsnivå och könsfördelning. Det nya mönster som etableras under perioden kan förstås som en omställning av den administrativa personalens uppgifter till att tjäna ledningarnas strävan att styra och kontrollera verksamhetens effektivitet och produktivitet. En utveckling som kan förklara ökade spänningar i förhållande till universitetslärarprofessionen. En annan möjlig implikation kan vara att det ur administratörskåren växer fram en ny profession.

The Swedish University system has evolved into a vast and complex institution. Expansion has not only concerned student and teacher numbers, but also the organizations where they work, including administrative tasks and the staff categories who manage them. All this has given rise to representations of, and questions about, the university administrators and their relation to teachers and researcher. This article aims to describe how the composition and size of the university administration has changed in the period 2001-2018. While it indicates that the increase in the number of administrators is mainly proportional to that of teachers and researchers, it also shows that the character of the university administrator corps has changed. This tendency finds expression in the patterns of growth and decline of administrator categories during the period, and in changes in the level of educational attainment of the corps of administrators. The new pattern, established in the period under study, is interpreted as an adaptation of administrator tasks to management ambitions to govern and control the efficiency of the organization, including the productivity of its teachers and researchers. The academic profession, whose organizational environment is made up by the thus refashioned administrative apparatus, has thereby been furnished with new conditions for negotiating which administrative tasks should be performed by them, and which tasks belong with the administrative staff. Another possible implication may be that the university administrator corps could evolve into a new profession.