The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companion: Getting to Grips with Research in Education and the Social Sciences

by Thomson; Pat

• ISBN13: 9780415484121
• ISBN10: 041548412X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2010-05-10
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

There are a burgeoning number of books available to support doctoral research ' doing-it guides and advice books, methods books, philosophy, ethics, analysis, getting published, and so on. There are countless methodology and methods texts in particular. However, this extensive literature is difficult for doctoral students to navigate and thus will not necessarily take them forward in their projects. Uniquely, this book is a companion to the many catalogues of texts now available for doctoral purchase.Becoming a researcher involves engaging with a range of ideas and issues mediated through a particular research project. 'Getting' the doctorate is always much more than simply completing the research ' in reality it is about becoming and being, and this process is integral to becoming part of the scholarly community. Doing a quality doctorate in contemporary times requires more than the technical skills required of a research process; it involves coming to see oneself as a researcher and to take on a confident researcher identity. This book works by exploring how identity/knowledge formation happens together. It addresses a set of interlocking and overlapping big questions that 'sit' behind the plethora of doctoral advice texts and run through the practice of knowledge/identity work.With contributions from many of the key names involved in the international education arena, this book will enable students to navigate their way through the vast library of doctoral and research books by bringing together questions and solutions which are generally scattered through a plethora of texts and will help all full and part-time students undertaking doctorates in education and other cognate disciplines become efficient researchers.

Author Biography

Gary Alan Fine is John Evans Professor of Sociology at Northwestern University. His book Whispers on the Color Line: Rumor and Race in America was a finalist for the C. Wright Mills Award.
Bill Ellis is Professor Emeritus of English and American Studies at Penn State University. He is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society and has served as President of the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research.
Pat thomson Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia and a Visiting Professor at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Melanie Walker is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Nottingham, and is also Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. ix
List of tables	p. x
Notes on contributors	p. xi
Introduction Why The Doctoral Companions?	p. 1
Doctoral education in context The changing nature of the doctorate and doctoral students	p. 9
Becoming and being a doctoral student	p. 27
Ignorance in educational research How not knowing shapes new knowledge	p. 31
When qualitative meets quantitative Conversations about the nature of knowledge	p. 43
Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity Diverse purposes of research: theory-oriented, situation-oriented, policy-oriented	p. 52
The necessity and violence of theory	p. 68
Bringing theory to doctoral research	p. 76
Seeking the single thread The Conceptual Quest	p. 85
Theory and narrative in the production of knowledge	p. 96
Making sense of supervision Deciphering feedback	p. 107
Entering the gates of the elect Obtaining the doctorate in education in South Africa	p. 116
Weaving the threads of doctoral research journeys	p. 128
Coming to terms with research practice	p. 143
It's been said before and we'll say it again - research is writing	p. 149
Constructing research questions: focus, methodology and theorisation	p. 161
Research questions What's worth asking and why?	p. 172
'There is no golden key' Overcoming problems with data analysis in qualitative research	p. 183
Dealing with data analysis	p. 200
Researching with large datasets: learning to think big when small is beautiful	p. 213
Doing data analysis	p. 221
Argumentation and the doctoral thesis: theory and practice	p. 231
Writing research	p. 244
'Guilty knowledge' The (im)possibility of ethical security in social science research	p. 256
Dangerous reflexivity Rigour, responsibility and reflexivity in qualitative research	p. 270
Emotions and being a doctoral student	p. 283
Making a contribution to knowledge	p. 295
Quality agendas and doctoral work The tacit, the new agendas, the changing contexts	p. 299
Generating practitioner knowledge through practitioner action research Moving from local to public knowledge	p. 311
Coyote and Raven talk about equivalency of other/ed knowledges in research	p. 323
Knowledge in context Whose knowledge and for what context?	p. 335
Open access and the ongoing transformation of scholarly publishing A guide for doctoral students	p. 344
Inner university, knowledge workers and liminality	p. 356
Global students for global education research?	p. 368
The impact of research on education policy The relevance for doctoral researchers	p. 377
Last words Why doctoral study?	p. 390
Index	p. 403
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