Professional legitimacy in flux: academic tutors in a time of uncertainty

Abstract

Institutional analysis typically assumes professional newcomers use strategic isomorphism to craft a legitimation project. A qualitative study of 31 tutors and their respective clients and managers in Beijing indicates how this project is continually in flux, predicating the life stages of its practitioners. Using the dyad theory of legitimacy, we find that tutors' professional legitimacy is anchored to their ability to meet the immediate expectations of clients when they regard performance boosting as a single-dimensional priority. The tutor-parent relationship is purely market-based and reputation-driven. A tutor's professional knowledge plays a minor role in winning parents' approval as it has been routinized by and embedded in the techno-managerial tutoring agencies. Faced with uncertainty in teaching, tutors are increasingly resorting to ancillary services to retain clients. From this perspective, tutors are being reduced to replaceable service workers. The legitimation project is transient and beyond the grasp of individual tutors.