Over the past two decades, increasing government cuts have forced universities to become dependent on full- and part-time contract faculty. This fixed dependence has reinforced the functional split in the academic labour force, a split that has taken the form not only of differences in status, compensation, career opportunities, and professional development, but also of feminization and occupational segregation.

In Hidden Academics, Indhu Rajagopal examines the multiple ways contract faculty have emerged as an underclass in academia. The identity of the part-time faculty, the nature of their work, and their feelings about status in the university are explained. Central to these discussions are the feminization of part-timers, the relationship between the full-time faculty and their perceptions of part-timers, academic administrators' reasons for hiring part-timers, and the future of the university in this context.

Indhu Rajagopal is an Associate Professor of Social Science at York University.

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