International Academic Profession: Portraits of Fourteen Countries, The

Journal of College Student Development, Nov/Dec 1998 by MacLean, L Sandy

The International Academic Profession: Portraits of Fourteen Countries

Philip G. Altbach (Editor)

Princeton, NJ: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1996, 666 pages, $20.00, (softcover)

Copies available from: Jossey-Bass Publishers Inc., 350 Sansome Street, Fifth Floor, San Francisco, CA 94104

In 1990, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching began a major research effort in international education. The Foundation's rationale and goal for the project were stated by its president, the late Dr. Ernest Boyer:

"We are convinced that an international perspective is central to an understanding of key problems in education, and that we can learn much from the experiences and insights of other countries" (Altbach, 1996). "Our goal was to learn more about the condition of the professoriate from a larger perspective and, in the process, define priorities that could strengthen the academy worldwide" (Boyer, 1994).

The International Academic Profession: Portraits of Fourteen Countries is the second in a series on the professoriate. The first was The International Academic Profession: An International Perspective.

The research instrument used, The International Survey of the Academic Profession, was adapted from an earlier Carnegie Foundation questionnaire. It is a 200 item questionnaire designed to measure faculty members' attitudes on student access, workloads, compensation, training, involvement in professional activities, quality of the working environment, teaching, research, and service expectations; role in governance, perceptions of higher education's contribution to society, international connections and demographic information on the professoriate The instrument was translated into eight different languages and sent to an international research team of twenty members in fourteen countries. In each country, a random sample of faculty members were surveyed in colleges and universities awarding the baccalaureate degree and above. The fourteen countries were Australia, Brazil, Chile, England, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Japan, Korea, Mexico, The Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, and the United States.

The goal was to achieve a minimum of 1,000 completed questionnaires from each country. The objective was achieved in nearly every case and 19,472 returned questionnaires were available for analysis. The response rate varied from 95 per cent from Brazil to 14.5 per cent from Russia. Most countries' response rate ranged from 33 per cent to 50 per cent. The study was conducted in 1992 and 1993.

Published in 1994, The Academic Profession: An International Perspective is a summary of the findings. Apparently this publication, other relevant data, and the data from the respective country was forwarded by the editor to the international research team members for their contributions to the second volume, The Academic Profession: Portraits of Fourteen Countries. In addition, the research team members received a suggested chapter outline, were asked to write an essay on the academic profession in their country, describe relevant and contemporary issues, and give the analysis of their country's data. The contributors had flexibility to account for unique circumstances that influence higher education in their country. Two examples of the later are Hong Kong and Russia.

Not surprisingly, anticipating the transfer of Hong Kong from England to China in 1997, many Hong Kong faculty did not expect to be employed in their institutions five years hence. On the other hand, Russian faculty members were coping with the problems associated with moving from a state socialism economy to a capitalist economy and the accompanying high inflation rate.

The book is subdivided into the following six sections: Australia; Asia, i.e., Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong; Latin America, i.e., Brazil, Chile, and Mexico; the United States; Europe, i.e., England, Germany, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Russia; and Israel. It would take too much space for this book reviewer to comment on every country's higher education professoriate. Further, this is not a book that one sits down and reads from cover to cover. Instead, most will read the first chapter, "The Academic Profession in International Perspective," by Philip Altbach and Lionel S. Lewis. This is a summary of the research finding from all fourteen countries and the section in which these authors draw conclusions on the international dimensions and characteristics of the academic profession, i.e., full-time and part-time members of the faculty.

Next, most readers will use the text as a resource to study the academic profession in one or more countries of their interest. This is one of the limitations of the study. Only fourteen countries are included in the research and, by and large, as the authors state, these countries' higher education systems are middle income or above. In addition, many readers will be disappointed that no countries from Africa are included and only Israel is included from the Middle East. Regardless of these limitations, what can an international scholar or interested person learn from this study? One conclusion is that the academic profession does exist internationally. The professoriate, like other professions, e.g., law and medicine, has international common expectations, purposes, priorities, and personal and professional responsibilities. According to this research, the academic profession is largely a teaching enterprise. Although there exists in every country a " research cadre" at research institutions, clearly most professors stated that teaching was their primary responsibility. There was general agreement that research supported teaching. Service was also considered a significant responsibility of the professoriate. However, it took different forms depending upon the country.