The Changing Position of Legal Academics in the United Kingdom: Professionalization or Proletarianisation?

Bradney, Anthony; Cownie, Fiona

Abstract

This article analyses changes to United Kingdom (UK) university law schools during the period coinciding with Phil Thomas’ career as a law teacher – the latter part of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first – in part illustrating the analysis with other examples from Thomas’ career. We will focus specifically on the way in which what it means to be a legal academic has altered, with UK legal academics having been professionalized as a community during this era. Yet, seemingly paradoxically, it is also an era during which, many have suggested, academics in UK universities have become a proletariat.

Citation

Bradney, A., & Cownie, F. (2020). The Changing Position of Legal Academics in the United Kingdom: Professionalization or Proletarianisation?. Journal of Law and Society, 227-243. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12265

• Acceptance Date: Oct 29, 2020
• Publication Date: Nov 23, 2020
• Journal: Journal of Law and Society
• Print ISSN: 0263-323X
• Publisher: Wiley
• Pages: 227-243
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12265
• Keywords: law, research, academic staff, professionalism
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jols.12265