Varied starting points and pathways : a duoethnographic exploration of 'diverse' students' uneven capacities to aspire to doctoral education
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Other Title
Authors
Burford, J.
Mitchell, Cat
Mitchell, Cat
Author ORCID Profiles (clickable)
Degree
Grantor
Date
2019
Supervisors
Type
Journal Article
Ngā Upoko Tukutuku (Māori subject headings)
Keyword
New Zealand
doctorate students
diversity
aspiration
doctoral education
duoethnography
first-generation students
indigenous students
sexuality
social class
LGBTQIA+
Māori students
research methodology
doctorate students
diversity
aspiration
doctoral education
duoethnography
first-generation students
indigenous students
sexuality
social class
LGBTQIA+
Māori students
research methodology
ANZSRC Field of Research Code (2020)
Citation
Burford, J., & Mitchell, C. (2019). Varied starting points and pathways: A duoethnographic exploration of 'diverse' students' uneven capacities to aspire to doctoral education. Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology, 10 (1), 28-44. doi:http://158.36.161.173/index.php/rerm/article/view/3242
Abstract
This article argues that the language of ‘diversity’ does multidirectional work – highlighting issues of social justice, as well as obscuring the varied experiences of those gathered underneath its umbrella (Ahmed, 2012). It builds on existing debates about widening participation in higher education, arguing that nuanced accounts of ‘diversity’ and doctoral aspiration are required. We present a duoethnographic text about two doctoral students’ pathways to study. While both students may be positioned as ‘diverse’ within their institution’s equity policy – as a sexuality minority student, and a working-class woman of Māori and European heritage – they reveal dissimilar expectations of what university study was, or could be. These histories of imagining the university shaped their trajectories into and through doctoral study. Drawing on Appadurai’s (2004) work, we argue that aspiration can be a transformative force for ‘diverse’ doctoral students, even if the map that informs aspiration is unevenly distributed. We then investigate why the idea of the ‘academic good life’ might have such aspirational pull for politically-engaged practitioners of minority discourse (Chuh, 2013). The article makes two primary contributions. First, we call for more multifaceted understandings of doctoral ‘diversity’, and for further reflection about the ways that social difference continues to shape academic aspiration. And second, we demonstrate the potential for duothenography to provide insights into the experiences of ourselves
and an-Other through a shared examination of university imaginings
Publisher
Høgskolen i Oslo og Akershus
Permanent link
Link to ePress publication
DOI
doi:http://158.36.161.173/index.php/rerm/article/view/3242
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Authors
Copyright notice
"Reconceptualizing Educational Research Methodology (RERM) is an open-access, net-based, peer reviewed and English-language journal for researchers and practitioners investigating, tracing and theorizing practices, experimenting and exploring a variety of research methodologies"--https://journals.hioa.no/index.php/rerm/about