Colonised by quality? Teacher identities in a research-led institution

This article explores the impact of quality assurance and enhancement initiatives on teacher identities in higher education. Data from an interview-based study of a research-led institution in the United Kingdom are drawn upon to consider the implications of quality – for example, whether it has captured the inner assumptive worlds of higher educators (and supplanted their own understandings of quality) or whether it has opened up new subject positions and possibilities for change. I focus on a particular group of people within the article – those who have demonstrated an interest in higher education teaching by participating in professional development programmes. Such programmes have proliferated in the light of the quality movement whilst offering exposure to ‘educationalist’ discourses. Contextualising the work through previous critical higher education research, I consider the group’s perceptions of quality initiatives and the construction of their teaching identities within a research-led institution.