Academic identity of Access HE tutors: a focused review of the literature

This focused literature review was designed to inform a small-scale pilot research project on the academic identity of Access HE (Higher Education) tutors. Drawing on literature from Anglophone and European education systems, it highlights the challenges of defining professional identity and rehearses the argument for developing a deeper understanding of teacher professional identity. It highlights the disparate theoretical frameworks used to understand and analyse the concept and the methodological approaches adopted. While there appears to be a greater consensus around methodological approaches – which are predominantly qualitative – theoretical frameworks used to underpin the concept are less well developed. Across the majority of studies, a clearly articulated and developed definition of professional identity is absent. The review identifies a number of gaps in the literature, in particular the limited attention given to the academic identity of experienced or mid-career practitioners and academic identity in further education settings in general and Access HE tutors in particular.