Four academics and a student: a multiethnographic study on joy across academic life

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Abstract

Joy is diffuse and challenging to define and demarcate. To highlight the individuality and collective understanding of joy, this paper considers joy in higher education at five points of life—the student, the doctoral researcher, the early career lecturer, the established senior lecturer and the professor. Various reports suggest that lecturers feel constrained, fearing that upsetting students could lead to formal complaints. Many are hesitant to intervene in classroom conflicts, worried about potential allegations of abusive treatment, and feel unsupported by departmental leadership. Yet joy is experienced in higher education. It is against this background that the focus of this paper considers the presence and nature of joy within higher education. Presented as a dialogue, the paper unites five voices across two countries in a multiethnographic study to tease apart what it means to experience joy in higher education settings. Each participant examines joy in higher education through their personal lived experiences. This dialogue unfolds as an open exchange, moving both vertically and horizontally, as each perspective deepens and broadens the individual and collective understandings of joy in higher education.

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Keywords

joy, higher education, tensions, career, personal experience, reflective practice

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