A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal
Doctoral studies as a precarious identity process : deviance and the rational ideal of the doctoral process
Authors: Blomberg, Annika
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Publishing place: ABINGDON
Publication year: 2024
Journal: Studies in Higher Education
Journal name in source: STUDIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Journal acronym: STUD HIGH EDUC
Number of pages: 15
ISSN: 0307-5079
eISSN: 1470-174X
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2420205
Web address : https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2024.2420205
Abstract
Based on narrative interviews with late-phase doctoral candidates and early postdoctoral researchers, complemented by an autoethnographic diary, this study analyses the experiences of junior academics. A rational ideal of the doctoral process is identified, and its implications for doctoral students' identity work are discussed. While the rational ideal of the doctoral process has its uses, it prescribes the preferred conduct of doctoral studies and regulates doctoral identities through preferred conceptions of the self. Consequently, doctoral identity work often involves the construction of one's self in ways that seek to conform to the rational ideal while continuously failing to do so, making deviance from expectations a prevailing feature of it. These experiences of deviance from the elusive ideal both increase the precariousness of doctoral identities and reproduce the regimes of power in which doctoral students are embedded. Thus, this paper challenges the rational ideal and provides a more nuanced understanding of doctoral studies as a precarious, emotional and embodied identity construction process.
Based on narrative interviews with late-phase doctoral candidates and early postdoctoral researchers, complemented by an autoethnographic diary, this study analyses the experiences of junior academics. A rational ideal of the doctoral process is identified, and its implications for doctoral students' identity work are discussed. While the rational ideal of the doctoral process has its uses, it prescribes the preferred conduct of doctoral studies and regulates doctoral identities through preferred conceptions of the self. Consequently, doctoral identity work often involves the construction of one's self in ways that seek to conform to the rational ideal while continuously failing to do so, making deviance from expectations a prevailing feature of it. These experiences of deviance from the elusive ideal both increase the precariousness of doctoral identities and reproduce the regimes of power in which doctoral students are embedded. Thus, this paper challenges the rational ideal and provides a more nuanced understanding of doctoral studies as a precarious, emotional and embodied identity construction process.
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