| Abstrakt: |
This personal experience narrative details the dissonances I experienced conducting my ethnographic dissertation study as a graduate teaching assistant (GTA) studying GTA teaching development. These dissonances arose due to my recognition and scrutinization of the blatant transmission of neoliberal ideology in my research setting ("Cardinal State University", where I was also a GTA myself) and its role in creating a campus culture undermining to GTAs. Drawing upon field notes, interviews, and document analysis from my 15-month dissertation study, I illustrated findings in the form of two written accounts, or confessional tales, with analytical interludes integrating tenets of both theory and research on neoliberal postsecondary education. Overall, through various channels, Cardinal State University (CSU) transmitted neoliberal ideology in the form of messages framing prospective undergraduate students as customers and commodifying aspects of postsecondary education. The content of these messages was explicitly undermining to GTAs and fostered a campus culture demoralizing to GTAs at CSU, as they sowed competition and antagonism between GTAs and other campus actors and were dismissive and dishonest about GTAs' instructional labor. Engaging in this work and making these discoveries was personally alienating, leading me to reconsider my approaches to GTA centered scholarship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
