Dear Jack, Dear All,

I hope this list might engage in dialogue about what 'getting a PhD' means. 

At its best, the PhD is a highly valuable system for ensuring furtherance of
knowledge and knowledge creators for society but could it and should it be
improved so that students are not subjected to a serendipity of PhD process? 

A wide variation in quality of support and examination of a doctorate seems
to proceed largely unmonitored. Examiners can and sometimes do use academic
judgement to exclude candidates where their research is clearly worthy of
recognition. I am thinking of the decision to fail your PhD on two occasions
Jack - and in case anyone on this list might think I am divulging 'secrets'-
I hasten to add that you have published papers widely about this injustice.
There should never have been questions raised about your originality of mind

It leads me to wonder if 'getting a PhD' is about more about demonstrating
membership of a highly privileged tribe as a rite of passage rather than a
structured form of professional development that is designed for a student.

Certainly any student who questions the judgement of their supervisor seems
likely to be asking for trouble. PhD is a kind of apprenticeship but there 
may not be an engagement with that student's needs - rather there is a kind
of one size fits all lottery in some cases - where a student may (if they
are fortunate) meet with the kind of CPD they need. So I ask A PhD is for..? 

Is it akin to passing a driving test where the expert driving comes later?
Similarly in teaching; qualified teacher status is overtly the beginning of
learning to teach.  Passing a driving test is the start of 'driving' well.

Maybe a PhD is a sign of power and seniority like wearing a mayoral chain..?
and just as wearing a mayoral chain can be a viewed by some as a barrier to
communication, I wonder how far having a PhD closes as well as opens doors?  

Have we as academics become too fixated on 'getting a PhD'and forgotten that
we are privileged by society at large to generate knowledge on their behalf
and has the pendulum swung too far towards defending a kind of exclusive and
defensive hierarchy that protects itself by claiming 'academic freedom' when
it wages war (academic freedom cannot be challenged under the Law, I think)
and when confronted by a challenge to its authority in supporting (or not) a
growth of educational knowledge within doctoral study, hides behind a cloak
of academic judgement which like academic freedom can be a license to abuse.

Is it time that we as academics come together to improve the PhD system for
the support of individual students and call for more accountability by PhD
supervisors and examiners? Would that reduce a risk of needing to 'run the
gauntlet' by practitioner researchers who find their PhD has scant support? 

Best wiahes,

Sarah

Convenor of BERA Mentoring and Coaching SIG
For SIG related events see http://www.TeacherResearch.net