Research assessment as a pedagogical device: Bernstein, professional identity and Education¹in New Zealand

Recent restructuring of research funding for New Zealand’s higher education institutions is ‘outputs‐driven’. Under the Performance Based Research Fund, units of assessment of research quality are individuals, every degree teacher receiving a confidential score of A, B or C (if deemed ‘research active’) or ‘R’ (‘Research Inactive’). Despite its relatively high number of A and B rated individuals, Education’s collective ranking was low. I interviewed staff and draw on Bernstein to explore how this process affects professional identity formation, a process involving engagement with changing ‘official’ external identities. I overview Bernsteinian concepts, historicise Education’s changing official identities and illustrate how these enabled and constrained participants’ self‐definitions before, during, and immediately after, the quality evaluation. The imposition of audit culture reproduces old theory/practice binaries.