Does doctoral education matter? Identity change through research journeys across disciplines (Prof. Eli Bitzer)
Batchelor and Di Napoli, 2006: when you reach your destination you are different. There are changes in who you are as well as what you know.
Changes are around epistemological, ontological and researcher autonomy
Kroger, 2007, 11: “a turning point”, moving one way or another, marshaling resources for growth, differentiation
Brew, 2001: conceptions of research as a “journey”
Doctoral research no longer private – now open and public as part of a conversation in the a knowledge economy
Henkel, 2005; Malcolm and Zukas, 2009: factors impacting doctoral identify
Bernstein, 2006: skills development towards research autonomy, looking at the process from a developmental perspective
– Curiosity: determine a need for further understanding
– Determination: choosing a path
– Criticality
– Organisation: better structured in terms of data and networking
– Creativity
– Persuasion: use the language of the discipline to communicate persuasively
Interviews with the researcher, significant others, and reflective diary of the researcher. Supervisors asked in what ways the researcher had changed
Curiosity: became a more curious person, not only in the field, but in general (not all participants experienced this, especially those who were part of larger projects where the project was not self-initiated)
Determination: “I had to be able to stand by it and not feel intimidated”, became more assertive and confident. Growth in terms of independence, commitment to finishing
A sense of frustration when missing deadlines, pushing to full capacity, distractions
The culture within a department influences the development of the researcher identity and autonomy in that department. But, there are other influencing factors e.g. the institutional, national and international culture and communities that these students are part of.
Determination, organisation and persuasion seemed to have a greater impact on the development of researcher identity, than the other elements. Identity also develops as part of a journey within a community
“I had no time to bleed”: Heroic journeys of PhD students (Prof. Jane Castle)
“It was pure hell. I had to fight for time, money, space.”
Many people use the metaphor of a “heroic journey” to describe their process. They used imagery of danger, challenges, obstacles. Why do some people face “terrifying odds” to complete their PhDs, and others don’t?
How do individuals negotiate and overcome problems?
Through stories, people recount their places and spaces in the world. Stories are not static. Help to create structure. Have the potential to explore the personal and collective nature of the experience.
Journeys as a quest for knowledge. But also constructions of “tragic narratives”, where students don’t complete and believe they are unworthy. Also the business narrative, logical and structured. Penal narrative around punishment and suffering as part of job and employment requirements (supervisor as a warden in a prison)
PhDs tied to academic identity, producing self-directed and autonomous scholars
Highly personalised, but not personal. Described as “military training academy”, where “only the strong survive”, the narrative is male-dominated
Perceive the PhD as both a quest and an ordeal, and the ordeal is what makes the quest worthwhile
Glimpsing the ecological curriculum (Prof. Ron Barnett)
Both advocates and critics of the university agree that they are part of a global discussion, even to the extent of using the same language
What does it mean to be a 21 century graduate?
What do we hope for from our students?
What do students want for themselves?
What does it mean to “learn” in a university
What are the responsibilities of the university towards students?
Be aware of successively shorter periods of employment in any one area
Develop students as future members of society. If so, knowledge and skills are not sufficient. Human beings are not simply possessors of knowledge, they are beings in the world, they engage with the world, have possibilities in the world
Being in the world involves conflict and debate, differences in values
Talks of graduates as exemplary human beings, of having a sense of wanting to contribute to global well-being, to have global consequences
Option to simply fall fall in with the neo-liberal agenda and construct the student as customer, graduates for knowledge capitalism, OR
Another is to “wring our hands and offer a dismal pessimistic critique” and leave it at that (and, it’s easy to write these critical scripts without offering a solution), OR
Or, look for spaces that might satisfy the powerful lobbies but also promote a higher education for the 21st century
“A possibility of possibilities”
“An education for South Africa is an education for the world, but then perhaps an education for the world is also an education for South Africa”
Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge / skills, skills, skills (these two warring mantras are not enough, even together they are inadequate because they are inert)
They are inert because it is a person who uses knowledge and skills, in themselves they do nothing. Knowledge and skills that are not put into action are not enough to capture the educational challenges present in higher education
“A journey into strangeness – a scary experience”
A curriculum is a process of human becoming, a voyage through strangeness
A curriculum for becoming (knowledge, action and being) – at its heart, an unfolding person, taking on dispositions and qualities
Students becoming themselves through the challenges we give them
Dispositions for a world of challenge (every module should be aiming to achieve these):
– a will to learn
– a will to engage
– to listen
– to explore
– hold oneself open to experience
– determination to keep going forward
We don’t face the world and engage with it because we have knowledge and skills
Qualities – students becoming themselves:
– carefulness
– courage
– resilience
– self-discipline
– integrity
– restraint
– respect for others
– openness
– criticality (towards the world and themselves)
– imagination & creativity
Dispositions are necessary, qualities are optional (but qualities colour the students’ movement forward, they take them on for themselves)
Higher education is not about gaining knowledge and skills, it’s about transforming lives. Students don’t look back on their time in university and remember the facts they learned…they remember the transformation, and those who helped them with that process
The spaces we create influence students’ process of becoming
A curriculum and pedagogy of:
– space
– graciousness
– affirmation
– recognition
– freedom
– challenge
– support
– strangeness
– engagement
– personal responsibility
The idea of the ecological curriculum, an ecology of the imaginary – according to different criteria that those of profit and yield
We don’t use imagination enough in higher education
There are always new possibilities to be imagined
Promote a sense of being in the world, of being sensitive to interconnectedness in the world, not inert but engaging, improving and enhancing, a continuous process of unfolding and becoming, care of the world and of others in the world, have empathy with the world
Need spaces for critical self-reflection, for engaging with the self
Self-sustaining, but also self-understanding on different levels (personal and professional, emotional, systems, ideas, people)
Recognise their responsibility not only to sustain themselves and the world, but to improve it. Not living in one’s own world, helping to bring about a better world
Implies genuine, critical thought and action
Being a graduate calls for both lifelong and lifewide learning (different spaces for learning, learning across one’s life experiences), opening up of learning experiences outside of the formal curriculum, leads to the idea of the “life-informed curriculum”
These ideas represent enormous challenges to the university
Not just about satisfying student needs, it is about genuine challenge and transformation, pushing them into unsafe and scary places
We’re not there to satisfy students, we’re there to stretch them, make them uncomfortable, push them into new ways of being