Educational linguistics vol 22 english for academic purposes in neoliberal universities a critical grounded theory

This is a useful guide for practice full problems of english, you can easy to learn and understand all of issues of related english full problems. The more you study, the more you like it for sure because if its values.

English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical Grounded Theory

Educational Linguistics

language learning The series is based on the idea that there is a need for studies that break barriers Accordingly, it provides a space for research that crosses traditional disciplinary, theoretical, and/or methodological boundaries in ways that advance knowledge about language (in) education The series focuses on critical and contextualized work that offers alternatives to current approaches as well as practical, substantive ways forward Contributions explore the dynamic and multi-layered nature of theory-practice relationships, creative applications

of linguistic and symbolic resources, individual and societal considerations, and diverse social spaces related to language learning

The series publishes in-depth studies of educational innovation in contexts throughout the world: issues of linguistic equity and diversity; educational language policy; revalorization of indigenous languages; socially responsible (additional) language teaching; language assessment; fi rst- and additional language literacy; language teacher education; language development and socialization in non-traditional settings; the integration of language across academic subjects; language and technology; and other relevant topics

The Educational Linguistics series invites authors to contact the general editor

with suggestions and/or proposals for new monographs or edited volumes For more information, please contact the publishing editor: Jolanda Voogd, Asssociate Publishing Editor, Springer, Van Godewijckstraat 30, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5894

Gregory Hadley

English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical Grounded Theory

ISSN 1572-0292

ISBN 978-3-319-10448-5 ISBN 978-3-319-10449-2 (eBook)

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-10449-2

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014953824

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

This work is subject to copyright All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed Exempted from this legal reservation are brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis or material supplied specifi cally for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work Duplication of this publication or parts thereof is permitted only under the provisions of the Copyright Law of the Publisher’s location, in its current version, and permission for use must always be obtained from Springer Permissions for use may be obtained through RightsLink at the Copyright Clearance Center Violations are liable to prosecution under the respective Copyright Law

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use

While the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication, neither the authors nor the editors nor the publisher can accept any legal responsibility for any errors or omissions that may be made The publisher makes no warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

Niigata University

Niigata-shi , Niigata , Japan

Abstra ct

As momentous changes continue to sweep across the world of higher education, tertiary-level English for Academic Purposes (EAP) is experiencing a time of pain-ful professional transition In many higher educational institutions (HEIs), EAP units have been transferred from academic departments to administrative offi ces charged with international student recruitment and entrepreneurial talent develop-ment Confl ict is a common feature as EAP teachers struggle to maintain their pro-fessional lives while working within new managerial systems that espouse very different views about the nature and purpose of Second Language Education This research showcases a grounded theory situated within this restive profes-sional environment Drawing from in-depth interviews of over 90 informants at 18 higher educational institutions in the UK, Japan and the USA, this volume presents

a new type of worker emerging from within EAP units Called Blended EAP Professionals (BLEAPs), this grounded theory critically highlights the processes and strategies used by these workers to survive the perilous organizational ‘Third Spaces’ within neoliberal universities Besides their teaching duties, successful

BLEAPs spend most of their time in Hunting & Gathering , Weighing & Measuring , Molding & Shaping These processes are underwritten by the core social process of Professional Disarticulation This book unlocks properties and dynamics that support these social processes, and considers the implications of this critical grounded theory for Tertiary EAP as the profession approaches the middle of the twenty-fi rst century

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank my wife, Hiromi Hadley Were it not for her support and encouragement, this work would not have come to fruition Many thanks also to the following for their words of wisdom and scholarly insight during the various stages and iterations of this project: Corony Edwards, the University of Exeter, UK, and her scholarly spouse Dr Mohamed A Mahmoud; Dr Almut Koester, The Vienna University of Economics and Business; and Dr Robert Vanderplank, Jeremy Cresswell, Dr Alistair Ross, Dr Bent Flyvbjerg and Dr Paul Fiddes, all who are at The University of Oxford Thanks to Dr Kathy Charmaz, Sonoma State University, for her advice and empathetic understanding I appreciate the contribution of

Dr Chris Kennedy, Professor Emeritus, University of Birmingham, UK, and to

Dr Adrian Holliday, Canterbury Christ Church University, not only for playing the devil’s advocate, but also for inspiring me to strive even further to gain a critical awareness of the edges and limitations of this theory I deeply appreciate the feed-back of Dr Francis Hult, Lund University, Helen van der Stelt, Jolanda Voogd and the reviewers at Springer, who greatly improved many aspects of this book And

fi nally, my gratitude goes out to the anonymous informants who participated in this research Thank you for your words, actions, and insights Thank you as well for having the courage to share and for not losing your capacity to care, even during those times when painful changes at your universities put you in precarious places The world is a better place because of you

Contents

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts,

and Theoretical Constructions 1

1.1 Pivotal Events 1

1.2 Why This Book? 4

1.3 Key Concepts 4

1.3.1 Neoliberal Universities 4

1.3.2 English for Academic Purposes 7

1.3.3 Blended EAP Professionals 8

1.4 Critical Grounded Theory 9

1.4.1 Beginning Stage 10

1.4.2 Intermediate Stage 13

1.4.3 Final Stage 14

1.5 Practicing Refl exivity 16

1.5.1 Research Background and Paradigmatic Position 16

1.5.2 Composition Style, Transcription, and Data Collection 17

1.6 Structure of This Book 22

2 EAP in the Third Space of Neoliberal Universities 25

2.1 Introduction 25

2.2 The Shift to Vocationalism 25

2.3 Sociopolitical and Economic Scaffolding 30

2.3.1 Globalization and Higher Education 30

2.3.2 Massifi cation 32

2.3.3 McDonaldization 33

2.4 Institutional Manifestations and Emergent Third Spaces 34

2.4.1 Distinguishing Between Universities: An HEI Typology 34

2.4.2 Enter the Third Space 37

2.5 Reconstructing EAP into Student Processing Units (SPUs) 39

2.5.1 From Collegiality to Command & Control 40

2.5.2 Mechanistic Models 41

2.6 Chapter Summary 43

3 The Emergence of Blended EAP Professionals 45

3.1 Introduction 45

3.2 Blended Ambiguity 45

3.3 Life as a BLEAP 47

3.3.1 Becoming a BLEAP 47

3.3.2 Typical Tasks 49

3.3.3 Types and Trajectories 50

3.3.4 Upwardly Mobile BLEAPs 51

3.3.5 The Transactional BLEAP 52

3.3.6 The Sinking BLEAP 54

3.4 Chapter Summary 57

4 Hunting and Gathering 61

4.1 Introduction 61

4.2 Resource Prospecting 63

4.2.1 Seeking Resource Enhancements 63

4.2.2 Securing Dependable Resource Flows 70

4.2.3 Cultivating Potential Resources 74

4.2.4 TEAP Response to Resource Prospecting 75

4.3 Investment Servicing 76

4.4 Milking the Cash Cow 78

4.4.1 Examples of Overseas Program Milking 80

4.4.2 Role of BLEAPs 82

4.4.3 Response of TEAPs 83

4.4.4 Covariances and Conditions 84

4.5 Resource Leeching 85

4.5.1 Internal Resource Leeching 87

4.5.2 External Resource Leeching 90

4.6 Chapter Summary 93

5 Weighing and Measuring 95

5.1 Introduction 95

5.2 Contextual Factors in the Weighing & Measuring of Higher Education 96

5.2.1 External Factors 97

5.2.2 Internal Factors 98

5.3 Weighing & Measuring Tertiary EAP Programs 99

5.3.1 Challenges to the Weighing & Measuring of EAP Programs 100

5.3.2 Strategies for Weighing & Measuring EAP Programs 100

5.4 Weighing & Measuring TEAPs 104

5.4.1 Challenges to the Weighing & Measuring of TEAPs 107

5.4.2 Strategies for Weighing & Measuring TEAPs 108

5.5 Weighing & Measuring International Students 111

5.5.1 Challenges to Weighing & Measuring International Students 111

5.5.2 Strategies for Weighing & Measuring International Students 116

5.6 Weighing & Measuring BLEAPs 118

5.6.1 Challenges to the Weighing & Measuring of BLEAPs 119

5.6.2 BLEAP Strategies for Weighing & Measuring 121

5.7 Chapter Summary 126

6 Molding and Shaping from on High 127

6.1 Introduction 127

6.2 Seeing the Big Picture 128

6.2.1 BLEAPs and the Big Picture 129

6.2.2 TEAPs in Obscurity: Puzzling Out a Different Picture 131

6.3 Maintaining Control 132

6.3.1 Creating Process Frameworks 132

6.3.2 Owning the Process 133

6.3.3 In-Group Consolidation 136

6.3.4 Green Zone Construction and Bunker Building 139

6.3.5 Flow Management as a Control Maintenance Strategy 141

6.4 Making an Innovative Impact 144

6.5 Consequences of Molding & Shaping for Tertiary EAP 145

6.5.1 Surviving on Administrative Patronage 146

6.5.2 Reshaping Professional Identities 147

6.5.3 Colonial Transformation 151

6.6 Chapter Summary 154

7 Mobbing, Struggling, and Managing: A Story of Professional Disarticulation 157

7.1 Introduction 157

7.2 Professional Disarticulation 158

7.3 Potential Contributions 160

7.4 Further Implications 164

7.5 Final Thoughts 165

References 167

Contents

List of Figures

Fig 1.1 Recurring analytical processes in the grounded

theory methodology 11

Fig 2.1 Types of higher educational institutions 35

Fig 2.2 Third space factors infl uencing EAP in neoliberal HEIs 38

Fig 3.1 A BLEAP typology of strategies 50

Fig 3.2 Social processes for blended EAP professionals 58

Fig 4.1 Network of theoretical codes linked to hunting & gathering 62

Fig 5.1 Contextual dynamics and theoretical categories 96

Fig 5.2 Principle components analysis from repertory grid interviews 106

Fig 6.1 Interconnected theoretical codes and properties of molding & shaping 128

Fig 7.1 Stages and trajectories of professional disarticulation 159

List of Tables

Table 1.1 Research sites 20 Table 1.2 Totals and types of informants interviewed 22 Table 5.1 Concordance sample of interviews indicating

student numerifi cation 104 Table 6.1 Analysis of ‘strategic’ using WordSmith tools 4.0 145

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

G Hadley, English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical

Grounded Theory, Educational Linguistics 22, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-10449-2_1

Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts,

and Theoretical Constructions

1.1 Pivotal Events

It was the autumn of 2004 I was fl ying over the wide expanse of the American Midwest on the presidential plane of Polaris State University 1 The Dean of my university in Japan and I had just fi nished our inspection of a semester-long English for Academic Purpose (EAP) program recently established with Polaris for our undergraduate students In addition to our tour of the EAP unit, we were unexpectedly ushered into places where we could observe the inner workings of the university’s administrative management As part of their overall goal of achieving ‘greater quality and excellence’, we were told of ambitious plans that would place EAP at the center of a drive that would signifi cantly increase international student numbers and ‘enhance diversity’ on campus It was partly within the context of those plans that we were at that moment fl ying to an exclusive resort where the President of Polaris would receive, on behalf of the university, a prestigious State Award in Total Quality Management

The President and Dean were merrily chatting away while I stared at the patchwork

of farms, fi elds and forests below What I had seen so far at Polaris had stirred up thoughts and recollections about changes that had just started to take place in Japanese Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) Only a few months earlier, the pro-fessional life of Teachers of EAP (TEAPs) at Japanese universities had been similar

to the conditions enjoyed by teachers in the UK and the United States during the so-called Golden Age of Higher Education (Bender 1997 ; Altbach et al 1999 /2005,

p 357; Archer 2008 ) Although that era ended by the mid 1970s, even until the middle of the 2000s, Higher Education (HE) in Japan was still enjoying suffi cient state support, plentiful student enrollments, moderate teaching loads and consider-able levels of teacher autonomy It was equally the case that, with the exception of a few elite universities, Japanese HE and tertiary English language instruction were

1 All place names have been anonymized

characterized as having relatively low levels of educational and research quality (Miyoshi 2000 ; McVeigh 2002 ) After two decades of economic stagnation, the graying of the population, and a rapid decline in the number of college- aged students, Japan was unable to support HE as it had throughout the latter half of the twentieth century In 2004, the Ministry of Education, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) implemented policies that privatized virtually every national university Market-based reforms for both private and national universities were introduced, and a framework establishing a neoliberal model of HEI governance was put in place (Feller 2004 ; Yamamoto 2004 ; Yoda and Harootunian 2006 )

A cleverly crafted synthesis of university reforms similar to those implemented years earlier in the UK and United States, the resulting ‘Big Bang’ was hailed as the most signifi cant change to take place in Japanese higher education in over a century (Goodman 2005 )

Evocative of the Social Darwinian notion of punctuated equilibrium, once the reforms had been announced, changes swept across the country with startling speed

In the space of a few months at my institution, Nippon University of Global Integrated Studies (NUGIS), teacher assessment by students and outside quasi- governmental organizations suddenly increased, administrative work of the type that had once been the domain of offi ce support staff unexpectedly swelled, and within the issue of faculty governance, teacher authority quickly evaporated A new managerial elite composed of administrators having more business experience than academic credentials took the reins of university management, and soon began to make full use of the new powers given to them by the Ministry Downward pressure

on faculty to fi nd innovative ways to generate income for the university became a common feature of one’s professional life TEAPs, both Japanese nationals and non-Japanese, began entering the university on short-term, non-tenure track con-tracts, and in a development that was nearly identical to other universities across Japan, most were relocated to new EAP units that occupied an ambiguous organiza-tional space between academic departments and the rapidly developing student ser-vice offi ces that were under administrative management

The plane began to experience some turbulence, causing a lull in the onboard conversation The silent shaking jolted my thoughts closer to the moment, to what I had seen earlier in the day during the visit to the EAP Unit at Polaris While the students that we had sent there were receiving levels of service that far exceeded what they would normally be given at NUGIS, the workloads and general condi-tions for the TEAPs had been a source of concern Our observations of TEAPs straining under heavy work schedules had an uncanny resemblance to what I had personally experienced while teaching EAP for several summers at the University

of Wensleydale in the UK The summer presessional program there had all the marks of what others have aptly described as an academic sweatshop (Sharff and Lessinger 1994 ) It was surprising to see such similar conditions at an HEI on the other side of the world

hall-1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

We landed early Like some scene out of a movie, a chauffeur was waiting beside the runway to take us to the resort Elsewhere, the head of the EAP unit at Polaris, together with midlevel administrators and professional staff, were still making an arduous six hour trip by coach The TEAPs, who had recently been rehired on administrative contracts, and who had been instrumental in the success of the study abroad program, had not been invited This they did not begrudge however, since most of the administrative staff attending the ceremony faced another six hour return trip later the same evening Tomorrow was a workday

During the reception before the ceremony, I stayed close to the new head of the EAP unit as he milled around, shook hands and talked with politically infl uential regents, senior university administrators, and regional leaders of major service cor-porations who were also there to receive similar awards in Total Quality Management Amidst the clinking of wine glasses and sandwiched between the well-mannered mumble, quite a few had opinions about how EAP could do a better job at ‘servicing the university’

I returned to Japan a few days later Soon afterwards, university administration

asked faculty to attend a newly instituted ‘Business Exchange Conference’ ( kigyou

kondankai ) that was to be hosted by the university at an upscale hotel We were

expected to meet and greet corporate representatives and deepen the social ties between NUGIS and business leaders Feeling a sense of déjà vu, I found myself milling around and speaking with the Japanese counterparts of those I met at the reception a few weeks earlier in America Here again, I encountered several who had rather strong views about the role of English language education, and how NUGIS should be addressing the needs of local industry

The steady imbrication of such experiences began to build within me a curious sensation of dissonance Instead of at scholarly conferences or in prestigious aca-demic journals, could it be that the future of EAP was being decided in evening banquets held by university administrators and corporate managers? Within this organizational ‘climate change’ taking place in HEIs around the world, how is EAP adapting? What effects are these changes having on the professional identity of those working in this fi eld?

These and other questions were the impetus that set me on a seven year journey, one which spanned three countries and 18 universities This book is the result of that journey It has been written primarily (but not exclusively) for teachers of EAP and those who have found themselves tasked with managing a Tertiary EAP unit without any formal authority or positional power The remainder of this introductory chapter explains the potential signifi cance this book has both for the EAP academic community and others teaching in higher education I will present

a number of issues that, while seemingly disparate in nature, will help to contextualize what is to come later The methodology and issues related to Critical Grounded Theory will be also be discussed and followed by a synopsis of the upcoming chapters

1.2 Why This Book?

The global spread of economic and governmental policies, which in turn have stimulated the emergence of a ‘neoliberal’ university model, has been an object of intense scrutiny for over a generation (Readings 1996 ; Barnett 2000 , 2011 ; Brentnall 2013 ) Books and papers are regularly published concerning the various facets of Higher Education’s transition from scholarly institution to knowledge factory (Slaughter and Rhoades 2005 ; Washburn 2005 ; Bosquet 2008 ; Donoghue

2008 ; Tuchman 2009 ; Poole 2010 ; Canaan and Wesley 2011 ) Yet within this maelstrom of academic inquiry, scant attention has been given to the effects of neoliberalism on tertiary level EAP (e.g Block and Cameron 2002 ) This in itself

is remarkable, since as a branch of the Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), EAP was among the fi rst disciplines to experience changes of the type now affecting university academics around the world Indeed, as will be repeated later, the decision of earlier academic departments to allow EAP units to

be relocated under administrative management created the precedent for current reforms that have drastically changed the nature of academic professional life, especially for those in the liberal arts and social sciences A study of how EAP is faring in neoliberal universities seems to be both timely and warranted, not only for those directly involved in the task of teaching English for Academic Purposes, but also to scholars in other disciplines, since the conditions of EAP units in universities act as a social barometer for predicting the future of other academics in such institutions

1.3 Key Concepts

However, a conceptual backdrop must fi rst be raised in order to highlight certain features within this work Three distinct threads, the Neoliberal University, a more inclusive defi nition of EAP, and a group of workers in HE that I have labeled as Blended EAP Professionals, will be woven together to form a unique theoretical tapestry Each of these will now be considered in brief before they are once again reworked into the fabric of later chapters

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

with the economic philosophies of Enlightenment thinkers, American and British economic practices from the mid nineteenth to early twentieth century, the intellectual work product of the Mont Pelerin Society of the 1940s, and the theories

of the Chicago School of Economics under Milton Friedman during the 1960s and 70s Neoliberal thinking tends to exhibit strong Social Darwinian overtones, espe-cially within the core belief that economic markets are self-regulating and self-cor-recting Weak or inferior economic practices, corporations, products, and services become extinct by failing to either satisfy consumers or by wreaking disastrous effects upon society in the form of fi nancial crises or defective workmanship The invisible hand of the consumer serves as the driver of natural selection to sensibly guide the economic system, because in a corporate sense, it is believed that human-ity knows what is necessary for creating a better world Government regulation of the market and special interest groups, such as labor unions or bodies of perma-nently employed workers, are seen as disruptive to the natural order They slow the speed of progress, and ultimately, damage the wellbeing and individual freedom of choice for those in the majority (Harvey 2005 ; Frieden 2006 )

Steger and Roy ( 2010 ) explain that a deeper understanding of what neoliberalism now means in today’s world can be found within the domains of public policy, ide-ology, and governance As a policy package, neoliberalism calls for the deregulation

of the economy, the liberalization of trade and commerce, and the privatization of state-run organizations, such as post offi ces, welfare services, hospitals, and state- supported education This facet of modern neoliberalism energizes the second realm

of ideology, where it is presented as a rational worldview The virtues of a global market, of excellence and expertise, the free fl ow of goods, services and labor, and

of multinational corporations leading the way towards a technologically advanced and more convenient world, are common themes in the ideological discourse of neoliberalism It is here that neoliberalism as an economic view of humanity tran-scends the marketplace and begins to reach into all sectors of society

Neoliberalism’s infl uence on governance has arguably received the greatest attention from scholars in the applied social sciences (Jessop 2002 ; Olssen and Peters 2005 ; Trakman 2008 ; Brown and Baker 2012 ) This aspect of neoliberalism will be most prominent in this work as well, though it must be emphasized that the role of ideology and policy planning are inextricably linked to justifying and imple-menting neoliberal governance Egalitarianism and consensus building strategies are characterized as slow and ineffi cient in neoliberal systems Instead, hierarchical stratifi cation based on technological skill and specialist expertise is upheld as prag-matically necessary, often within the context of an existential sense of crisis Those with authority to lead have an established track record of making entrepreneurial, rational, and economically benefi cial decisions for the organization The quick deci-sion making process of these small groups of these technocrats, followed by a top-down application of resultant action plans, are believed to make the organization more agile in the face of potential opportunities or sudden crises The implementa-tion of this form of governance is maintained through tightly controlled systems of practice These are cyclical in nature and constantly monitored Products or services

offered by the organization are delivered to end-users, who are then questioned for feedback via quantitative research methods in order to further improve the quality

of future process cycles

While often accepted in many countries as a reasonable way to govern and run profi t-driven corporations, a signifi cant amount of research and scholarly commentary has studied how a new managerial caste, guided by neoliberal beliefs

on governance, have sought to use these notions to transform the organizational culture and professional practices of government administrative bodies, hospitals, schools, and universities (Salter and Tapper 2000 ; Kayrooz and Preston 2002 ; Mok and Lo 2002 ; Yamamoto 2004 ) With particular regard to Higher Education, this process of change was fi rst witnessed in the United States over 30 years ago,

a time when national funding for higher education began to shrink due to a combination of a declining tax base and a conservative shift in attitudes on the part of policymakers regarding the purpose of HE in society Faced with yearly reductions in public support, Aronowitz ( 2000 , p 83) noted that American HEIs rapidly began ‘retreating from the ideals of liberal arts and the leading-edge research it always has cherished’ in favor of a model more akin to that of private corporations ‘By the mid-1990s’, he continues, ‘the corporate university had become the standard for nearly all private and public schools’ in the United States, and since then, this neoliberal model of governance has been exported on a global scale Policymakers in the UK, Japan, the EU and even Scandinavian countries such as Norway and Iceland, have implemented similar versions of the American Neoliberal University (Kinnell 1989 ; Tjeldvoll 1996 ; Stanley and Patrick 1998 ; Power and Whitty 1999 ; Welle-Strand 2000 ; Block 2002 ; Itoh 2002 ; Yonezawa

2002 ; Bocock et al 2003 ; Yamamoto 2004 ; Baber and Linsday 2006 ; Hubball and Gold 2007 )

A neoliberal university, therefore, is defi ned as a self-interested, entrepreneurial organization offering recursive educational experiences and research services for paying clients In such institutions, academics become managed knowledge produc-ers who should ideally follow prescribed sets of organizational processes Their research and pedagogic output must be justifi ed as benefi cial to the university through quantitative measures Students are recast into the role of knowledge con-sumers, and have a voice in determining the manner in which educational services are packaged and delivered to them (Castree and Sparke 2000 ; Jarvis 2001 ; Silvey

2002 ; Steck 2003 ; McKenzie and Scheurich 2004 ; Yamamoto 2004 ; Washburn

2005 ; Woolgar 2007 ; Donoghue 2008 ; Tuchman 2009 )

The degree to which a university becomes neoliberalized will depend upon the status and type of institution, and the level to which it has been affected by the inter-connected phenomena of Globalization, Massifi cation, and McDonaldization These will be considered within the backdrop of how the neoliberal transformation

of Higher Education has privileged vocational training over the ideals of Western Cultural Humanism

In all its forms, the dynamics of neoliberalism continue to transform universities around the world This has had major implications for the nature and purpose of tertiary EAP

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

1.3.2 English for Academic Purposes

Gillett’s ( 2004 , p 11) defi nition of English for Academic Purposes is typical in that

it is described as the ‘language and associated skills that students need to undertake study in higher education through the medium of English.’ Similar defi nitions of EAP can be found elsewhere (e.g Hyland and Hamp-Lyons 2002 , p 2) However, these concerns focus primarily upon HE as located within Kachru’s ( 1982 ) Inner Circle – places such as the United States, UK, and Anglophone countries where English is spoken as the fi rst language of social life and instruction As we move further into the twenty-fi rst century, global developments are blurring the boundar-ies between EAP of the Inner Circle and university classes abroad that have been more traditionally associated with English for General Purposes (EGP) or TESOL Due in large part to the spread of English as the language of international commerce and the desire of national leaders to cash in on this development by insisting upon greater English language profi ciency among their populations, coun-tries of the outer and expanding circles have started to take greater ownership of English, and within universities, of EAP While most will continue to view the pur-pose of English as a means of enabling students to better access the academic opportunities provided by the institution, English as a means of increasing enroll-ments or as part of the socialization process for entering a global community might

be equally pressing goals These developments have resulted in the emergence of

‘EAPs’ similar to, but distinct from, the concerns of HEIs in inner circle countries

As one example, among language curriculum planners and educators in Japan, the understanding of what constitutes EAP has broadened in recent years In a pub-lished interview, Michael Guest, Professor of English at the University of Miyazaki

and contributor to Japan’s Daily Yomiuri national newspaper on English educational

affairs, expressed opinions that are common among Japanese educators and which are being increasingly espoused by native English teachers as well:

I do think that all tertiary English education should fall under the rubric of ESP/ EAP University education is supposed to be primarily academic in form, which means developing and using academic skills…It should be content-based, well beyond teaching

general English for English’s sake (Gunning 2009 , p 16)

English study in Japan has steadily shifted from being a subject situated within the sociological domains of secondary and tertiary level classrooms (Kennedy 1986 ; Hadley 1997 ) to one that emphasizes equipping students to access current knowl-edge from abroad, thereby becoming better informed learners when they take discipline- specifi c courses in their native language (Ohta 2003 ; Butler-Goto and Iino 2005 ; Hato 2005 ; Seargeant 2008 ) The hope is that the quality of higher educa-tion will increase, something which ultimately serves the political and economic goals of Japan as it seeks to secure its place in an increasingly globalized society (Kubota 1998 ; Matsuda 2003 )

Within the inner circle, more are beginning to recognize the necessity for a broader understanding of EAP throughout countries of the outer and expanding circles (Lynch 2001 ; Seidlhofer and Jenkins 2003 ; Jenkins 2007 ) Dudley-Evans

and St John ( 1998 , p 34) foreshadowed this trend when they proposed a defi nition

of EAP as ‘any English teaching that relates to a study purpose.’ Hyland ( 2006 , p 2) has also revised his earlier defi nition, and now frames EAP more inclusively as

‘specialized English-language teaching grounded in the social, cognitive and linguistic demands of academic target situations.’ This view of EAP is certain to raise eyebrows, but in a globalized and rapidly neoliberalizing world, HEIs within the inner circle can no longer ‘corner the market’ when it comes to defi ning its nature and use This book defi nes EAP as tertiary level English instructional training that enables learners to improve their language profi ciency within Higher Educational Institutions, irrespective of the country within which that instruction takes place The use of the word ‘training’ is intentional, as this refl ects the changes taking place within EAP at neoliberal universities, where the expectation is for learners to be trained both in the language and in autonomous academic skills in order to successfully participate in the policy mission of the institution

The neoliberalization of HE has also stimulated signifi cant changes in the expected roles of those in the university Celia Whitchurch ( 2009a , b ), a researcher at the University of London, has studied the emergence of what she has identifi ed as ‘Blended Professionals’ – a new and highly disposable type of HEI worker who that is neither fully academic nor fully administrative in nature Typically hired on short- term, non-renewable contracts, Blended Professionals teach classes and work on special projects that fulfi ll the aspirations of university administrative management They occupy orga-nizational ‘Third Spaces’ within neoliberal universities, which are typically responsi-ble for administrative services, student support, service learning, innovation, and academic skills development (Whitchurch 2008 ) Over time, Blended Professionals are tasked with a wide range of managerial responsibilities, but what makes them unique from traditional middle managers is the vague nature of their roles, meaning that they must oversee people and projects devoid of organizational authority

Today, many EAP units in neoliberal universities have been transferred from academic departments to these organizational third spaces, since they are seen as more related to training learners in English language skills than they are about scholarly research Among the ranks of traditional EAP teachers, new ‘blended’ forms for university workers have started to appear Drawing from Whitchurch, I have called these new workers Blended EAP Professionals, or BLEAPs While rec-ognizing the wry undertones of the acronym, as will be seen later, the term accu-rately captures the essence of their role in their EAP units and on university campuses The often-ephemeral nature of their careers depends upon the manner in which they respond to the implicit messages that remind them of their marginal position in the organization This will also entail balancing the plans of their administrative managers with the concerns and resistance of international students, TEAPs and tenured faculty

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

1.4 Critical Grounded Theory

The discussion so far was derived from interviews and fi eld observations, which were analyzed through the methodology of Grounded Theory (GT) GT began over

40 years ago out of the pioneering work of sociologists Barney Glaser and Anselm

Strauss Their book, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative

Research ( 1967 /1999), challenged researchers to temporarily put aside the

tradi-tional practice of validating the abstracted mind experiments of venerated gists, and to develop new theoretical perspectives from direct interaction with people in the fi eld (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, pp 1, 2 & 7) For Glaser and Strauss, ‘grounded’ meant that fi ndings were rooted in fi rsthand evidence – the problems, actions, symbols and aspirations of the people being studied, and ‘theory’ referred to an explanatory model that ‘fi ts empirical situations It should be understandable to sociologists and laymen alike Most important it works – it provides us with relevant predictions, explanations, interpretations and applications’ (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, p 1) As a method of inquiry, GT seeks to:

encourage researchers to use their intellectual imagination and creativity to develop ries relating to their areas of inquiry; to suggest methods for doing so; to offer criteria to evaluate the worth of discovered theory; and to propose an alternative rhetoric, that of generation, to balance out the rhetoric of justifi cation featured in journal articles and mono- graphs (Locke 2005 , p 33)

From its beginning, the Grounded Theory Methodology (GTM) had an ate appeal among new researchers who, as Eisner ( 2001 , p 137) explains, had become ‘attracted to the idea of getting close to practice, [and] to getting a fi rst-hand sense of what actually goes on in classrooms, schools, hospitals and communities.’

immedi-In contrast to other qualitative research methodologies at the time, GTM provided a suite of recursive practices that can be externally evaluated by the academy for its potential value (Denzin and Lincoln 2000a , p 14) By the end of the 1990s, GT had become ‘…the most widely employed interpretive strategy in the social sciences’ (Denzin and Lincoln 1998a , p xviii), and an exhaustive bibliometric survey of major books and articles at the time found that nearly two-thirds of the qualitative research projects in the social sciences had employed either full or partial forms of GTM (Titscher et al 2000 , pp 74, 218–220)

According to Bryant and Charmaz ( 2007a ), today there exists a ‘family’ of distinct but related forms of GTM One, called ‘Classic Grounded Theory’, is cham-pioned by Glaser ( 1992 ) Another version was proposed by Strauss (Strauss and Corbin 1998 ), and since his death, the co-author of the original work, Juliet Corbin, continues to adapt his original methodological style to modern concerns (Corbin and Strauss 2008 ) A version predating Strauss and Corbin’s work, known as Dimensional Analysis (Schatzman 1991 ), features a simplifi ed methodology that has inspired a postmodern version called Situational Analysis (Clarke 2005 ), and the highly popular Constructivist Grounded Theory (Charmaz 2006 )

As for new arrivals to the GT family, Charmaz ( 2005 , 2011 ) has been at the forefront of those calling for grounded theories that address issues such as social

justice, inequality, and other concerns that have often studied by critical theorists However, while she and other scholars (Kushner and Morrow 2003 ; Kempster and Parry 2011 ; Oliver 2012 ) have concluded that a critical form of GTM is possible, to date, only a few short papers (Wuest 1995 , 2000 ; Abrahams 2009 ) have attempted

to touch upon such concerns This book represents, the fi rst attempt at constructing

an extensive Critical Grounded Theory, both in terms of methodology and in terms

of theorizing about social processes inexorably linked to power, social stratifi cation, economic domination, and exploitation

A tangential point requiring our attention is the relationship of Grounded Theory

to Applied Linguistics A Straussian version of the methodology has been used to develop an infl uential theory on the behavior and symbolic actions of TESOL teach-ers in communicative classrooms (Senior 2006 ), but overall, GTM has been sorely underrepresented in the literature of TESOL, EAP and other specialties within the overarching fi eld of Applied Linguistics Grounded Theory receives cursory men-tion in books on research methods for TESOL and EAP teachers (Holliday 2002 ; Richards 2003 ; Dornyei 2007 ), and journal papers loosely based on a Grounded Theory approach are occasionally published (Watt et al 1996 ; Orland-Barak 2001 ; Gan et al 2004 ; Kung 2004 ; Sakui 2004 ; Mynard and Almarzouqi 2006 ) But in virtually all of these cases, the works presented have only drawn upon isolated aspects of the methodology Part of the problem lies in the fact that a defi nitive guide for using Grounded Theory in Applied Linguistics has yet to be written This may be why some have equated GTM to ethnography (Nunan 1992 , p 57; Harklau

2005 , p 183), Action Research (Burns 1999 , p 25), or why it has been linked to discourse analysis and corpus linguistics (see Derewianka 2000 , p 262; Sunderland

2002 ) Others have sought to mix the terminology and methodological practices of Grounded Theory with other qualitative methodologies, thus muddling the distinc-tive concerns of either form of inquiry (e.g Heath et al 2008 ) Equally unfortunate has been the use of ‘Grounded Theory’ more as a trendy catchphrase than as a means of inquiry into the sociological concerns of Applied Linguistics research (e.g Canagarajah 1999 , p 5)

Given these misconceptions, and because this book represents one of the fi rst signifi cant attempts to present a critical version of GTM, a general overview the methodology is necessary Especially for those unacquainted with Grounded Theory, this section will help to shed further light on how the research for this book was constructed, conducted, and organized

Critical Grounded Theory should be seen less as a major departure and more in terms of being a member of the next generation of Grounded Theory’s family of methodologies What follows has been inspired by widely accepted versions of the methodology (Goulding 2005 ; Locke 2005 ; Charmaz 2006 ; Bryant and Charmaz 2007b ; Corbin and Strauss 2008 ; Birks and Mills 2011 ; Stern and Porr 2011 ) The

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

DNA of these earlier approaches will be readily seen in the features of my Critical Grounded Theory methodology (Fig 1.1 ).

To begin, grounded theorists adopt a stance of ‘theoretical agnosticism’ (Henwood and Pidgeon 2006 , p 350), meaning that although there is an area of specifi c interest that has motivated them to begin, they refl exively recognize that their own sets of personal constructs could limit what they see and hear Similar

to phenomenological approaches (Backman and Kyngas 1999 , p 148), grounded theorists bracket their assumptions about the people and/or issues piquing their interest, while at the same time, seek a broader perspective on what others are doing and saying around the emerging topics (Stern and Porr 2011 , pp 30–31)

Using a practice known as Open Sampling, grounded theorists start by being willing to learn from anyone who will speak to them At this stage of the process,

Initial Interest

Open Sampling

Initial Data Collection

Open Coding

& Memos

Theoretical Sampling

Field Data & Scholarly Literature

Substantive Coding

&

Memos

Core Category

Fig 1.1 Recurring analytical

processes in the grounded

theory methodology

theorists should avoid accessing the scholarly sources they feel might pertain to their research, although reading general works of sociology, philosophy, biogra-phies and literature are permitted to help the theorist develop greater sensitivity to the human condition (Glaser 1992 , pp 31–33) By focusing at this stage on infor-mants, theorists are compelled to reconsider any preconceptions they might gained from their own experience or scholarly background, and to keep moving forward even if what comes from the informants seems to contradict what they or other aca-demic scholars think ‘should be’ The goal is to construct a theory based on what emerges from the problems, actions, and issues of the informants

After the fi rst interview or other piece of fi eld data, grounded theorists do not search for more until analyzing what they have already collected Using a form of analysis called Open Coding (Glaser 1978 , p 57), they write descriptive summary labels, usually in gerund form, in the margins of the fi eld notes, interview tran-scripts, observational notes, and other qualitative data They do not use preset codes from other research Coding must be inspired by the data at hand

While coding, grounded theorists write down theoretical memos (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, p 108), which are suppositions, good ideas, or musings that fl ash through their minds Only after the fi rst interview or observational event has been coded and expanded with theoretical memos do theorists return to the fi eld Based upon the new insights and questions gained from coding, they further refi ne their observations and questions when interacting with subsequent research informants When theorists begin to code the next batch of data, they use any open codes that seem to fi t, and create new codes for new information, while being careful to continue

to write more memos The process is iterative, in that one goes back and forth from the data during theory development Because the data is analyzed as it is collected, researchers can pace themselves and avoid getting overwhelmed with too much data

As information from later informants expands and refi nes the understanding of issues in the fi eld, the theorist then engages in what Glaser and Strauss ( 1967 /1999,

p 102) called the Constant Comparison Method Constant Comparison requires the theorist to go back to earlier interviews and codes, and reinterpret these in the light

of new information and insights The data is also studied to ascertain if a critical perspective can shed light on what may be taking place in the data Inspired by Flyvbjerg’s ( 2004 , p 283) phronetic style of questioning, the following matrix was implemented while coding interview data and fi eld observation notes:

• What is being gained/lost here?

• How is power or control being exercised here?

• Whose ‘story’ or perspective is being emphasized here?

• How is the informant winning (or losing) here?

• How is the informant’s story given prominence?

• In what way do the disadvantaged/disenfranchised resist?

• How is gender/age/class affecting the dynamics discussed here?

• How is the informant dominating (or how is s/he being dominated) here? This is not an exhaustive list, and other questions to investigate issues related to power, inequality, and gender could be formulated However, in keeping with a key

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

tenet of all forms of GTM, care was taken not to force data into preconceived

notions This entails an avoidance of an over -obsession with power and inequality

Grounded Theorists should be open to critical concerns, but they should not become

a one trick wonder Wuest ( 2000 ), in her defense of a Feminist form of GTM, emphasizes the need for ‘fi t’ when using a critical perspective for interpreting quali-tative data Charmaz wrote much the same in her call for Grounded Theories of Social Justice:

Any extant concept must earn its way into the analysis Thus, we cannot import a set of cepts such as hegemony and domination and paste them on the realities of the fi eld Instead,

con-we can treat them as sensitizing concepts, to be explored in the fi eld settings ( 2005 , p 512)

All of this is in line with the original position of Glaser and Strauss ( 1967 /1999,

p 253) when they stated that Grounded Theory, as a research tradition, allows researchers to approach the fi eld from their theoretical perspective so long as they are not doctrinaire in their interpretation of the data In practical terms this means that Critical Theory adds to the explanatory power of a Grounded Theory only when

it is clear that issues of power, inequality, economic domination, and forms of exploitation are problems actually taking place in the data My view, therefore, is in keeping with earlier methodological forms of GT – if the perspective fi ts, use it Otherwise, keep looking Other sociological problems exist and a Grounded Theorist should be open to these concerns as well

During this stage, ideas and hunches will begin to develop, and through tive inference (Chauvire 2005 ; Richardson and Kramer 2006 ; Oliver 2012 ), a mul-tidimensional picture of the most plausible explanation for what is going on steadily takes shape However, as Constant Comparison is essentially a form of Socratic thinking, theorists not only look for other events, codes and statements which seem

abduc-to be similar and which validate their hypotheses, they also must actively search out anything which offers other possible explanations By paying attention and making theoretical memos about data that might refute their growing understanding, theo-rists critically challenge their own emerging ideas, and further discover the limita-tions of their developing grounded theory (Corbin and Holt 2004 , p 51)

Grounded theorists then begin grouping together open codes that seem to share some affi nity with each other These new groups are given new descriptive labels that encapsulate their common qualities Known as Substantive Codes, Glaser ( 1978 , p 71) suggests that 10–15 of these are suffi cient for developing a good grounded theory Theorists begin looking for examples of the most common sub-stantive codes, and are careful to study the issues that make these patterns signifi -cant They seek out research informants and go to places where they can learn more about these new substantive codes, which is known as Theoretical Sampling (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, p 45) It is also at this time that theorists start

accessing scholarly literature that addresses issues related to the substantive codes Oftentimes the literature is found across different disciplines, which creates oppor-tunities for new multidisciplinary research However, the research literature is not placed in a privileged position of authority It is treated as another body of data equal in status to what has been generated by the people in the fi eld Scholarly literature and fi eld data complement rather than compete with each other for theo-retical signifi cance

The theorist eventually reaches a point of ‘theoretical suffi ciency’ (Dey 1999 ,

pp 117–118), when enough information has been gathered to develop a theory This

is often accompanied by an experience that Schatzman ( 1991 , p 310), describes as

‘critical mass’, one in which the theorist has a sudden epiphany about the meaning and overall interpretation of the issues being studied The analysis now shifts to theoretical coding In puzzle-like fashion, the researcher begins to create theoretical connections between the major categories Social processes link these categories, and the theorist assigns these processes with conceptual labels The labels for describing the social processes require theorists to move further way from the descriptiveness of earlier coding Here, they must use their ‘sociological imagination’ (Mills 1959 /2000) for creatively encapsulating the general within the particular, and for highlighting the interconnected fl ow between the social processes

Eventually, the theorist should identify a core category or a basic social process (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, pp 191–193; Glaser 1978 , pp 94–97), which is the central theme that ties together the other social processes The basic social process often contains various ‘stages or phases to account for process, change, and move-ment over time’ (Eaves 2001 , p 659)

After completing this third stage, grounded theorists will have collected enough material to write several books and papers Disseminating the theory requires a signifi cant amount of editing and restructuring The scholarly research accessed during the second and third stages of the study is presented at the beginning as a literature review that contextualizes the theory for the readers The main categories become the subjects of specifi c chapters The substantive codes will become the subsections of each chapter, and theoretical memos that further explain and illus-trate the social processes are used to add further detail The fi nal chapter will often contain the core category, core social processes, or theoretical codes that might offer any further insight into the area of study

Distinct from Case Studies, Action Research, Ethnographies, and menological investigations, all of which are ‘grounded’ in their own right, a Grounded Theory approach focuses less upon specifi c people and places, and more upon actions and social processes transferrable across similar social environments The result is an explanatory theory about the things that people do when placed in specifi c circumstances and certain social conditions Because grounded theories are

Pheno-1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

developed and coded from the words and regularly occurring behavior of people in

a specifi c social domain, a good theory will fi t for similar social conditions where Even in the case when there is already a signifi cant body of literature on

else-an issue, such as neoliberal governelse-ance in Higher Education, Stern else-and Porr ( 2011 , p 31) state that Grounded Theory provides a framework through which scholars from different disciplines can explore the same subject from different perspectives, thereby providing new vocabulary for naming social processes, and making theoretical contributions that are unique, imaginative and multifaceted Birks and Mills ( 2011 , pp 16–17) and Glaser ( 1978 , p 10) have argued that ‘a well done grounded theory will usually, if not invariably, transcend diverse previous works while integrating them into a new theory of greater scope than extant ones This is a useful contribution.’

Grounded Theory is not without its critics (Layder 1982 , 1993 ; Burawoy 1991 ) Many of these ascribe to positivist forms of knowledge production They not only question the degree to which any Grounded Theory is grounded (Thomas and James

2006 ), if the presentation of the theory diverges from APA writing conventions, they are quick to accuse the work as being either unscientifi c or biased (Madigan et al

1995 ; Walsh-Bowers 1999 ; Zeller and Farmer 1999 ) In addition, because Grounded Theory often presents excerpts of interview data that are linked to codes and pro-cesses, this will invariably lead to accusations either of ‘cherry picking’ items that supports the theorist’s agenda, or dismay that the interpretation of the reader has differed from the interpretation of the theorist (Saldaña 2011 ) Such epistemological issues have been an enduring feature of the ‘paradigm wars’ that have occasionally

fl ared up in the social sciences, and which have often generated more heat than light (Cobb and Bowers 1999 , p 6; Lowe and Carr 2003 , p 1058) Those more accepting

of constructivist, postmodern and critical realist epistemologies, however, stand that the human condition is complex, and that multiple interpretations of the same data are both natural and necessary There is greater acceptance of the fact that studying issues from a certain perspective does not necessarily entail that one is being willfully predisposed to a certain agenda Those who have engaged in Grounded Theory or other forms of mixed methods and qualitative research will also recognize that data presentation is representative of many months of studying hundreds, if not thousands of pieces of qualitative data If the theorist has followed the processes of constant comparison and other procedures in GTM, they can a least gain a hearing without being dismissed at the onset

Nevertheless, Miles ( 1979 , p 591) asks a question that all qualitative researchers must be willing to face: ‘How can we be sure that an “earthy,” “undeniable,” “seren-

dipitous” fi nding is not, in fact, wrong? ’ The risk of error and self-deception will be

an ever-present danger, and one cannot defend qualitative research simply by ing to the quantity of datasets or the length of time engaged in the research This is

appeal-why it is important to emphasize that this work presents a critical grounded theory,

not ‘grounded fact’, at least in the way that ‘fact’ is often understood by those who ascribe to positivist beliefs Theory does not magically emerge from the methodol-ogy; it proceeds from the grounded theorist as the ‘core processor’ of the collected data The grounded theorist uses the methodology to better visualize the overall

shape of the data, meaning that data is mediated through the theorist’s constructs, experience, discipline, endurance, skill as a researcher and sensitivity to others

1.5 Practicing Refl exivity

For these reasons, grounded theorists and other qualitative researchers often choose

to share with readers some of the aspects of their research background and beliefs,

as well as explain how they have composed their writings and collected the data Such refl exive practices often enable readers to better understand the worldview of the theorist, the potential applications and limitations of the theory, and the intel-lectual ferment from which a particular grounded theory has been catalyzed

1.5.1 Research Background and Paradigmatic Position

Much of my last 20 years has been spent living and teaching in Japan, with frequent travel to the United States and nearly 2 years of life in the UK This has motivated

my interest in the culture of second language classrooms, which I study using research instruments such as Personal Construct Repertory Grids (Hadley and Evans

2001 ), a tool developed by George Kelly, the founder of Personal Construct Psychology (Kelly 1955 , 1963 ) which has been used as a means to understand deeper issues affecting the educational processes of TESOL and EAP (Rowsell

1992 ; Roberts 1999 ; Borg 2004 ) Some of my research interests transcend EAP, as I have used phenomenological methods to investigate the cultural differences and multiple viewpoints around war memories (Hadley 2007 ) Paradigmatically, I oper-ate within a combination of Critical Realism, which tends to separate ontology from epistemology, and Constructivism (M Archer 1998 ; Bhaskar 1998 ) My philosophi-cal perspective, therefore, approaches that of Strauss and Clarke, both of whose approaches to Grounded Theory have been shaped by American Pragmatism (Annells 1997 , p 121; Clarke 2005 , p xxxiii; Locke 2005 , p 28) According this view, the social world is not only multidimensional, it is also marked by constant

fl ux and fl ow It is a chaotic maelstrom of ideas, agendas, viewpoints and activities, upon which transient social systems are provisionally imposed The infl uence of all these streams of thought (and even my choice of such fl uid language as ‘streams’) will be seen in the structure of my theoretical models and graphs, which in term of design, appear similar to the types of conceptual representations found in Strauss and Corbin ( 1990 , 1997 , 1998 ) and Clarke ( 2003 , 2005 ), who also allow background contextual issues and broad sociopolitical dynamics to take a more prominent role in the development of grounded theories These contribute to my view of social reality

as dynamic, multifaceted, and multidimensional My fascination with GTM began during my doctoral work, and the methodological approach of Glaser and Charmaz had the greatest infl uence on my development as a grounded theorist

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

1.5.2 Composition Style, Transcription, and Data Collection

Paradigmatic beliefs underscore the manner in which this book has been written Many readers will have already noted that the tone and style has so far differed from what is normally found in many Applied Linguistics books and journals, where there is a tendency to engage in a type of objectivized, hedged and neutral discourse that gives rise to positivist expectations I have purposely sought to avoid this, and instead have chosen to write in a style emulating the ‘Chicago School’ of sociologi-cal inquiry, which is a long-established and rigorous tradition of academic writing (Goffman 1959 /2005; Fine 1993 ; Belcher and Hirvela 2005 ; Tellez and Waxman

2006 ) I feel this will provide a more accessible and engaging way of presenting the subject matter This style also allows me as the writer to occasionally become visi-ble to you, the reader, during moments in the book when I discuss certain fi eld observations or interview excerpts

With regard to the interview data, something needs to be said about the process

of transcription Through a research website for sociologists, I hired two academic transcriptionists after testing them for speed and accuracy I made this decision because making my own transcripts was a laborious process requiring as much as ten hours to transcribe a one hour interview The trained transcriptionists were quicker, accurate, and professional They were well aware of the need to ensure the privacy of the informants and to preserve the security of the interview data fi les as part of their professional code of conduct As neither had personal or professional contacts with any of the informants or venues, I was suffi ciently satisfi ed that anonymity and privacy could be maintained

These attempts to ensure the quality and quantity of the transcripts, and to municate my expectations to the transcriptionists, were only the beginning of the process Epistemologically, Poland ( 2001 , p 635) has noted that the whole concept

com-of ‘transcript’ has become problematized, and presently there is little consensus as

to what truly constitutes a verbatim transcript (Lapadat 2000 , p 204) The controversy surrounding transcriptions means that a universal system of notation for qualitative research does not exist (McLellan et al 2003 , p 64) Poland ( 2001 ,

pp 635–636) and McLellan et al ( 2003 ) instruct researchers to be clear about their purposes for transcription and consistent in the manner by which transcripts have been constructed for research analysis They also state that it is entirely acceptable for researchers to design their own notation system

My purpose for creating transcripts was not for spoken discourse analysis, but instead for theorizing on informant narratives on sociological issues related to BLEAPs in neoliberal HEIs I created a notation system that was suffi cient for these purposes Ellipses were used to replace ‘ehrm’, stuttering or false starts, which is part of the process of using intelligent verbatim transcription, a point to which I will return momentarily It documented pauses, laughs, issues related to unintelligibility (technical problems, noise, mumbling, etc.), and ancillary features such as desk-pounding, mimicking, shifts in body language, changes in the informant’s normal tone of voice, and times during interviews when I noted signifi cant changes in facial

expressions or meaningful gestures In accordance with Mergenthaler & Stinson’s suggestions for transcription, my minimalist notation system was easy for the tran-scriptionists to follow, as it required only ‘everyday language competence’; it was

‘understandable and applicable by secretaries,’ and the rules were ‘limited in ber, simple, and easy to learn’ (Mergenthaler and Stinson 1992 , pp 129–130) My system also mirrored examples of transcript excerpts found in other published Grounded Theory works (e.g Charmaz 2006 , p 44)

The decision not to use a discourse analysis system of transcription will edly be questioned by some Applied Linguists I readily acknowledge that the man-ner in which one communicates an idea is often as signifi cant as what was actually said, but Poland defends my strategy, noting that a discourse analysis of large amounts of transcribed data would be fatally exhausting, both for the researcher and the transcriptionists:

There is a limit to the degree of painstaking attention to detail that can be demanded of a transcriber in applying an elaborate system of codes…In studies with large samples (60- 100+ interviews), when analysis may be more superfi cial and limited to the cataloging of opinions or experiences, close attention to conversational dynamics may be unnecessary (Poland 2001 , pp 639–640)

Returning now to the issue of intelligent verbatim transcription, such transcripts are faithful to what the informants have said, but they do not contain every fi ller word, hesitation and false start Although these aspects are certainly interesting to applied linguists, they can be distractions to generating a Grounded Theory Intelligent verbatim fulfi lls Mergenthaler & Stinson’s stipulation for the morpho-logic and structural naturalness of transcription to be maintained, though admittedly

it runs counter to their belief that it should be an ‘exact reproduction’ (Mergenthaler and Stinson 1992 , p 129) While intelligent verbatim represents sanitized discourse and risks losing important segments of linguistic meaning, the burden on research-ers working with large numbers of transcripts must be considered:

We do not need the full clutter of a transcript designed for conversation analysis We need

an account that accurately represents and effectively communicates the statements of the interviewee Sanitization involves minor alterations to assist that representation and com- munication, and does not in our view corrupt the data (Buchanan et al 1988 , p 62)

Silverman ( 2001 , pp 249–250) agrees, adding that ‘there cannot be a perfect

transcript of a tape-recording Everything depends upon what you are trying to do in the analysis, as well as upon practical considerations involving time and resources.’ The limits of time and resources spurred my choice for intelligent verbatim transcripts: they were suffi cient for my research purposes, and with over 1,000 pages

of transcript material, they were the most economical choice Transcriptions and the way they are used depend in large part on the research concerns of the theorist, which may differ from the interpretations and preferences of readers ascribing to different research methodologies, dissimilar personal constructs regarding data interpretation, and divergent epistemological beliefs on what types of knowledge can and should be transmitted via the transcript My intentions were to provide a richer sense of report-ing and to bring the readers further into the data with me as I explain the theory

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

An issue of even greater interest, I believe, relates to the collection of the fi eld data itself In contrast to ethnographic or case study designs, grounded theorists rarely delve as deeply into describing, for example, how access to informants or research venues was gained The focus is more upon thick theorization than upon thick description However, because of the relative obscurity of GTM in Applied Linguistics and related fi elds, I will attempt to provide more detail concerning these aspects

Van Maanen and Kolb ( 1982 , p 14) note that ‘gaining access to most organizational settings is not a matter to be taken lightly but one that involves some combination of strategic planning, hard work, and dumb luck.’ Educational organizations have an especially ‘bounded nature’ (Bryman 1989 , p 2) that are particularly resistant to the independent analyst appearing on their doorstep, armed with a clipboard, recording device, and prying questions The literature is replete with stories of qualitative researchers being denied access at the last moment by apprehensive gatekeepers (Beynon 1988 , pp 23–26), and it is for this reason that experienced fi eldworkers (Buchanan et al 1988 , p 53; Bryman 1989 , pp 161–162) often adopt an opportunistic approach ‘Opportunistic’ here should not be interpreted as what was once advocated

by Glaser & Strauss:

Another time-consuming aspect of data collection is establishing rapport with the people who are to be interviewed and observed To establish rapport quickly is, of course, some- times diffi cult…though establishing rapport is often not necessary In later stages of the research, when sampling many comparative groups quickly for data on a few categories, the sociologist may obtain his data in a few minutes or half a day without the people he talks with, overhears or observes recognizing his purpose He may obtain his data before being shooed off the premises for interfering with current activities; and he may obtain his data clandestinely in order to get it quickly, without explanations, and to be allowed to get it at all (Glaser and Strauss 1967 /1999, p 75)

Dey ( 1999 , p 119) calls this the ‘smash and grab’ method of access management Infi ltrating organizations without permission for the express purpose of spying on people raises a number of ethical concerns By opportunistic, I mean gaining per-mission to research where one already has existing personal or professional connec-tions Denzin and Lincoln ( 2000b , p 370) and Richards ( 2003 , pp 249–250) state that such an approach readily complements contemporary GT strategies It is stan-dard practice in countries such as Japan, where it is almost impossible to gain access

to a university or college without either working at the institution or having a league who can facilitate entry

Therefore, I used an opportunistic approach for accessing the research sites of this study While in the beginning, the bulk of my data collection took place at the core sites, I expanded my study to include other HEIs in the UK, Japan and the United States (Table 1.1 ) Some of this was facilitated by my work at NUGIS, which required me to travel to various universities in the United States in search of possible venues for short-term study abroad programs I had many professional ties that had lasted for many years at Alpha University I was able to secure access with considerable ease, and was able to observe the trajectory of BLEAPs at this a core site I spent a year on sabbatical at Beta University, a British university, where I had

unfettered access not only to academics in the university, this venue also allowed

me to easily visit other universities in the UK, ranging from Russell Group Universities to Post 1992 institutions Because EAP Units are often distinct in being assigned unique acronyms particular to a certain university, all acronyms referring to EAP Units that appear later in informant interview excerpts have been anonymized as EAP

Bryman ( 1989 , p 3) warns that simply getting into an organization does not ensure that people will talk Gaining access, much like the process of grounded theorizing, is a mediated experience Success in convincing people to give their informed consent to participate in a qualitative research project is often linked to perceived (and often unspoken) benefi ts, just as failure in convincing people relates to the risks posed to their standing in the organization (Beynon 1988 ,

p 21; Van Maanen 1988 , pp 4–5; Fielding 2001 , pp 150–151) Persuasion and rapport building were constant strategies for maintaining access after getting my foot in the door Even so, the quality of availability and contribution differed greatly between informants There is little that one can do about this, and in the spirit of what is sometimes referred to as the methodological bricoleur

(Levi-Strauss 1966 ; Hatton 1989 ; Denzin and Lincoln 1998b ), I took the advice

of Strauss & Corbin to accept such situations as the norm, and to ‘make the most out of what is available’ ( 1990 , p 210)

Also, in keeping with the methodological procedures described earlier for Critical Grounded Theory, at the onset I remained open to anyone who would talk

Table 1.1 Research sites

University of Wensleydale UK Russell Group Over 10

Polaris State University USA State Land Grant Over 10

Alpha University Japan National Core site

Beta University UK Russell Group Core site

Gamma University Japan Elite Private 3

Delta University UK Red Brick 3

Epsilon University UK 1994 Group 3

Zeta University USA State (Public Ivy) 1

Eta University USA State Land Grant 1

Theta University USA Private Religious 1

Iota University USA State Land Grant 1

Kappa University Japan Private Women’s 1

Lambda University USA Urban University 1

Mu University UK Research University 1

Nu University UK Russell Group 1

Xi University UK Russell Group 1

Omicron University UK Post 1992 1

1 Setting the Stage: Context, Concepts, and Theoretical Constructions

to me This entailed quite a few interviews with international students and undergraduate Japanese students, both in English and Japanese Early interviews with undergraduate Japanese students took place in small focus groups at NUGIS, but interviews with undergraduate Japanese learners and graduate international students were conducted individually at the University of Wensleydale I had continuous access to TEAPs, and interviewed many at the start in order to try and understand what might be going on in EAP Units Other early informants were former TEAPs who had become full-academics, and their perspectives on Tertiary EAP balanced some of the rawness of TEAP accounts in interviews Through my role in maintaining the NUGIS-Polaris Overseas Program, I was able to gain access

to a number of high-ranking HEI administrators At NUGIS, the frontline offi ce staff members were quite open to becoming informants However, upper-level administration often declined to participate, frequently citing work overload, which

is a common avoidance strategy used by powerful stakeholders to avoid scrutiny (Beynon 1988 ) My ability to secure the trust and access of midlevel administration

at Wensleydale was limited, because at the time various academic departments were

in the process of restructuring and many were fearful of job losses I had better results with the frontline administrative staff, as I had worked with some of them closely over several summers and had cultivated friendships that opened doors for later interviews I also had little diffi culty in gaining access to different types of informants at the other core sites, though opportunities for interviews and fi eld observations could be sporadic due to scheduling and work commitments

Eventually, in the interplay of the words and personal constructs of both myself and the informants, my coding began to center on Blended EAP Professionals Part

of the reason was that at the time, BLEAPs were only beginning to appear in Japan, though I learned from informant interviews in the US and UK that people of the type who were fi lling the types roles later to be defi ned as related to BLEAPs had already become commonplace There have been many studies on international students, university administrators, and EAP teacher identity, but a study of BLEAPs presented itself as a new area of exploration Therefore, BLEAPs became the nexus for understanding this critical grounded theory of EAP in neoliberal universities, but the words, actions, processes, and observations of students, TEAPs, frontline administrative staff, and senior HE managers also contributed signifi cantly to the development of this theory, as will be seen in later chapters

Once it became clear that the processes of the BLEAPs were emerging as the main concern, theoretical sampling necessitated a shift towards fi nding out more about the social processes related to BLEAPs While I was seeking out BLEAPs, this was in the context of the theoretical processes and categories that were emerging from my interaction with observation and interview data I arranged meetings with BLEAPs at additional research sites and cultivated opportunities for interviews at several academic conferences For those who consented to interviews, along the lines of Constant Comparison, BLEAPs were encouraged to add to, offer more insight into, or give reasons why they disagreed with, my developing theoretical ideas Coding became even more focused after interviews were supplemented with notes of further fi eld observations at the university research sites, together with

As this moment of refl exivity comes to a close, it is hoped that what has been provided will be suffi cient for helping readers to understand some of the surround-ing issues related to data collection, its potential ‘goodness’, and something of the nature of how the data contributed to the construction of this theory Yet it is also important to once again reassert that social processes are of more interest that, within the concerns of Grounded Theory, than particular people, the number of informants, certain emotional states, body language reported in transcripts, or even

of the specifi c research venues It is not to say these are unimportant, only that such concerns tend to fi nd places of greater prominence within the framework of other qualitative methodologies

1.6 Structure of This Book

The conceptual threads of this introductory chapter will now be woven back together through the methodology of Grounded Theory, and will form the basis of this book,

English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical Grounded

Theory Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews from ninety-eight informants

in the UK, Japan and the United States, and informed by over 1,300 pages of view transcripts, together with photos, videos, analyses of Personal Construct Repertory Grids, email correspondence, archives of professional journals, and a large collection of coded observation notes, this book presents a grounded theory on the strategies used by BLEAPs to survive in neoliberal HEIs Blended EAP

Table 1.2 Totals and types of informants interviewed

Informant type Total participants Total interviews

Graduate EAP students 6 5

Undergraduate EAP students 34 19

Professionals have been chosen as the locus for understanding EAP in corporate universities, since they have become a major conduit through which EAP is cur-rently being transformed This theory considers not only issues that are related to those charged with managing without positional power, it also studies the effects

of BLEAP strategies on international students and TEAPs both in and outside the classroom

Chapter 2 carries on with the contextual background to this theory by discussing numerous sociopolitical, economic and theoretical concepts contributing to the neo-liberalization of HE The different types of HEIs to which I gained access, and a discussion of conditions creating the Third Space in neoliberal universities, will be considered The chapter will end with a study of the conditions within the Third Space that inexorably transform EAP Teaching Units into Student Processing Units Chapter 3 draws from interview and observational data of BLEAPs to offer a typol-ogy of different strategy streams used by BLEAPs working in the Third Space, and considers their trajectories before introducing the three major social processes with which BLEAPs are constantly engaged Chapter 4 presents the fi rst of these three social processes by detailing strategies used in the acquisition of valuable resources,

or ‘Hunting & Gathering’ Chapter 5 studies the need for constant assessment in order to satisfy stakeholder agendas, which is called ‘Weighing & Measuring’ The attempt to redefi ne professional academic identities and activities in order that they can better fulfi ll the plans of stakeholders for the modern corporate university, or

‘Molding & Shaping’, is considered in Chap 6 The fi nal chapter presents the jectory leading to the core social process of BLEAPs in this theory, which is that of

tra-‘Professional Disarticulation’, before concluding with some of the contributions and potential applications of this grounded theory to those involved in the task of teaching EAP in neoliberal universities

As we proceed to the next chapter, it is my hope that the critical grounded theory now to be presented will be useful to those in the EAP classroom and in educational leadership, especially for those who are creating and implementing policies which affect the future of Tertiary EAP in the twenty-fi rst century The ensuing discussion will hopefully provide a meaningful context and greater insight into a social world that, while having an enormous impact upon the professional lives of TEAPs, is one

to which they rarely, if ever, gain access

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

G Hadley, English for Academic Purposes in Neoliberal Universities: A Critical

Grounded Theory, Educational Linguistics 22, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-10449-2_2

fi eld, will suggest that EAP units, once relocated to the Third Space, are being inexorably transformed into Student Processing Units (SPUs)

2.2 The Shift to Vocationalism

Vocationalism is couched within the loss of equilibrium between two distinctive ideological views about the purpose of HE in modern society One side posits HE within the scholarly ideals the German philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt, in which academics link their research interests to instruction, have autonomy in deciding how and what to teach, and have a dominant position in university governance Privileged learners enter the university through a merit-based system of