When Age Is Academically Constructed : The Endless Status of Youth of Italian Early Career Researchers

Based on the findings of research conducted in a university located in Northern Italy, this chapter analyses the different discursive constructions of age that are mobilized at the national level and how they are translated in two university departments – one of which was science, technology, engineering and mathematics and the other, social sciences and humanities (SSH). The ageing of academic staff in Italy is a core issue in the debate on the sustainability and quality of the scientific productivity of the academic system. The coexistence of such broad-ranging academic profiles makes the required criteria to obtain a position as assistant professor a space of negotiation and/or conflict. In the SSH department, there was then also an organizational discourse that somehow, though not explicitly, supported the candidates who had spent many years within the same department. The chapter discusses how the concept of age is mobilized within institutional and organizational discourses in Italian academia.