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Join us for a special book launch of the book Toward a global core value system in doctoral education

Jan 30th at 16:00 IST (3:00 PT)

The DST-Centre for Policy Research, CSP, IISc, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal Centre of European Studies in Inidia and, the editors and authors of the UCL Press publication “Towards a Global Core Value System in Doctoral Education” will host a special lauch of the mentioned book for university administrators and researchers who are working or studying in India.

If you would like to participate, please register here

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More about the book

Recent decades have seen an explosion in doctoral education worldwide. Increased potential for diverse employment has generated greater interest, with cultural, political and environmental tensions focusing the attention of new creative, responsible scholars.

Towards a Global Core Value System in Doctoral Education provides an evaluation of changes and reforms in doctoral education since 2000. Recognising the diversity of academic cultures and institutional systems worldwide, the book advocates for a core value system to overcome inequalities in access to doctoral education and the provision of knowledge. Building on in-depth perspectives of scholars and young researchers from more than 25 countries, the chapters focus on the structures and quality assurance models of doctoral education, supervision, and funding from an institutional and comparative perspective. The book examines capacity building in the era of globalisation, global labour market developments for doctoral graduates, and explores the ethical challenges and political contestations that may manifest in the process of pursuing a PhD.

Experts and early career researchers in the Global North and South collaborated in interdisciplinary and intergenerational teams to develop guidelines for doctoral education. They learned from each other about how to act courageously within a complex global context. The resulting recommendations and reflections are an invitation to reflect on the frames and conditions of doctoral education today.

New book: Towards a global core value system in doctoral education

Maresi Nerad, founding director of CIRGE, is one of the editors of a new volumen on doctoral education.

The book -“Towards a Global Core Value System in Doctoral Education”- provides an evaluation of changes and reforms in doctoral education since 2000. Recognizing the diversity of academic cultures and institutional systems worldwide, experts and early career researchers in the Global North and South collaborated in interdisciplinary and intergenerational teams to develop guidelines for doctoral education.

They learned from each other about how to act courageously within a complex global context. The resulting recommendations are an invitation to reflect on the frames and conditions of doctoral education today.

The book launch will take place on October 10th at 4 pm BST – 5 pm CEST – 8 am PST.

To participate in the book launch, please email globdoced22@bigsss-bremen.de

To download the book, please access   https://www.uclpress.co.uk/products/176624 [uclpress.co.uk]   

More information about the book here

Professional Development for Doctoral Students

Today, governments worldwide want world-class research capacities in order to attract investment and create new jobs. In this context, the next generation of researchers needs more than traditional research skills. They need to prepare themselves to work in many sectors of society post–PhD. Therefore, in addition to acquiring traditional research skills, doctoral students also need to formulate clear career goals, be introduced to a variety of academic and nonacademic career possibilities, and learn skills needed for managing post-PhD careers. They need to become versatile and equipped with transferable and translational competencies. Sets of workshops or training programs for doctoral students, known as “professional development,” are aimed at helping these students transition into professional careers.

Nerad, M. (2015). Professional Development for Doctoral Students. Nagoya Journal of Higher Education. Vol 15, pp. 285-315.

Download: Professional Development for Doctoral Students

Seminar about Globalization & Education: Creating a social academic space

Group of Students Studying About Global IssuesOrganized by a group of faculty and students from the College of Education at the University of Washington (UW), this seminar is an invitation to reflect on the way global dynamics affect the agenda setting in education worldwide.  The main goal of this seminar is to make visible the intersections between globalization and education which influence the ways in which educators, including those at the UW, are teaching and doing research. At the same time, the launching of the second CIRGE book “Globalization and its Impact on the Quality of Doctoral Education” will be part of this seminar.

Date and Location

Where: Miller Hall – Room 411 – UW Seattle Campus (see map)

When: Tuesday, May 12, 10:00 AM – 1:30 PM

The seminar is organized by the Teaching Education Research Inquiry (TERI) group, the International of Educators of the College of Education (IECE), and CIRGE.

Agenda

10.00  Registration
10.15 – Introduction
10.20  Discussion: Where do globalization and education intersect with knowledge production?
11.15    Book Launch: “Globalization and Its Impact on the Quality of Doctoral Education“, edited  by Maresi Nerad & Barbara Evans.
12.00 – Faculty and Student Panel “Whose knowledge counts (in the field of education)?

 

Presenters

Dr. Vanessa Andreotti, professor of the University of British Columbia  will present about the intersection between globalization and knowledge construction process in Education.  In her talk, she will also refer to the results of her project “Ethical Internationalism in Higher Education in Times of Crises”, which examines how transnational literacy and notions of global citizenship and social responsibility are constructed in internationalization processes of higher education in different countries.

Dr. Matthew Sparke, professor of International Studies, Geography and Global Health at the University of Washington, will comment on the book “Globalization and Its Impacts to Doctoral Education” and its contributions to the field.  Dr. Sparke is author of Introducing Globalization: Ties, Tensions and Uneven Integration (Wiley, Oxford: 2013), and In the Space of Theory: Post Foundational Geographies of the Nation-State (University of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis: 2005), as well as of over 75 other publications in the field of globalization and education.

Dr. Walter Parker is professor of the College of Education and the Political Science Department at the University of Washington.  Dr. Parker is an expert in the civic development of youth and social studies curriculum and instruction K-12.

Dr. Jondou Chen is an Associated Researcher at the UW College of Education with special focus on the program of Education, Equity and Society.  Dr. Chen  research interests involve the intersection of adolescent, moral, and cross-cultural development as well as neighborhood effects on development.

MJ (Mee Joo) Kim is a Ph.D. candidate in Higher Education at the UW College of Education. She has been working for a 5-institution, 5-year, NSF-funded project that investigated to understand the impact of belonging and other connections to community on academic engagement for undergraduates in science, math, and engineering (STEM). Her current research interest revolves in assessing institutional strategies to embrace global consciousness among college students majoring in STEM disciplines.

Hwayeon Myeong is a M.Ed student in Multicultural Education program at the UW College of Education. She is interested in how multicultural education in the United States can be applied to the education in reunified Korea. She is the founder and the president of The Human rights In North Korea (THINK), a registered student organization at UW.

 

Why to organize a seminar about globalization and education?

Researchers have widely acknowledged that the agenda on education is part of the global and international dynamics. However, this “global” component  become imperceptible when discussions about education focus largely on the United States. Students, faculty and staff of the College of Education at the University of Washington are attempting to articulate a space in which the intersection between global and local education becomes visible. 

“Education is an applied field and we know that our main focus is and has to be local. Along with that, we (a group of students and scholars) are immensely interested in understanding how that local agenda of education is influenced by global dynamics, and that what we do here has an impact for the rest of the world”, explains the PhD student Roxana Chiappa who is one of the organizers of this event.

Gathering faculty, students and the local communities to learn more about and to reflect on educational systems in other countries is the primary goal of this seminar, as well as to have a space to reflect how the ways of teaching and creating knowledge may impose dynamics of power for countries and societies that see the United States as a model in education.

The seminar is organized by the Teaching Education Research Inquiry (TERI) group, the International of Educators of the College of Education (IECE), and CIRGE.

New book of CIRGE: Globalization and its Impacts on the Quality of PhD Education

second-bookpngEach year, U.S. universities churn out enough new PhD graduates–50,000 of them–to populate a small city. Worldwide, more PhDs are produced now than ever before.    With anecdotes about out-of-work or underemployed PhDs receiving broad publicity, governments and university administrators in industrialized societies have started asking whether or not too many people are pursuing doctoral degrees.

Yet that’s the wrong question to ask, says Maresi Nerad, a professor at the University of Washington College of Education and expert on doctoral education who is co-editor of the new book “Globalization and Its Impacts on the Quality of PhD Education.”

“The topic of overproduction of PhDs surfaces cyclically and its often polemic responses of needing to recommend ‘birth control’ of PhD production are not new,” Nerad argues. The more important question, she says, is “are the PhDs receiving appropriate preparation during their doctoral studies that enables them to successfully find employment in which they feel happy, intellectually stimulated and satisfied with their contribution.”

In the new book, Nerad and other experts in doctoral education from around the world delve into the most significant trends that are affecting doctoral education in 15 different countries. The UW professor notes that a possible overproduction of Ph.D. holders is a phenomenon that has different aspects in different parts of the world.

“For instance, a number of developing countries are still in need of increasing significantly their Ph.D. holder rate, such as China, India, South Africa and most of the Latin American countries, while highly industrialized societies may experience certain saturation in their academic labor market, and Ph.D. are employed outside academia in industry, government and the non-profit sectors,” Nerad said. Germany, for example, has a tradition that only few PhDs remain in universities (currently 9% of all PhDs), the majority work is in a wide variety of jobs. A limited academic job market exists in countries with a significant drop in birth rates and where national ministries therefore curtail the number of professorial positions, such as Japan. In the USA, we experience a limited academic market in the social sciences and humanities.

Nerad says that the debate regarding whether there are too many or too few Ph.D. holders being produced should first answer whether those individuals have received a high quality doctoral education that is accepted worldwide. A second critical question, she says, is whether doctoral education includes the acquisition of professional competencies and experiences to work with colleagues in different settings and with different disciplinary and cultural backgrounds.

“In light of the massive increase of PhD production worldwide an emphasis on the quality of doctoral education in different national settings is vital,” Nerad said.

Learn more about what Nerad and her collaborators share in “Globalization and Its Impacts on the Quality of PhD Education” in the following interview.

What have you learned about the impact of globalization on Ph.D. education?

Nerad: The first major change is the scale of the doctoral education worldwide. What was once a small number of research disciplines has now grown to almost 80 fields in which research doctorates are awarded.  What was once a small group of privileged apprentices in elite universities has been replaced by tens of thousands of doctoral students from diverse background in hundreds of universities. Research doctorates are increasingly offered by institutions all over the world, not just in Europe and North America.

In our research, we examined policy statements in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and North and South America, and were surprised to find three broad commonalities expected of research doctoral programs. First, a Ph.D. should contribute to original work. Second, Ph.D. holders should have substantial knowledge in their area of specialties. Third, there is increasing agreement that Ph.D. training should include development of transferable skills and competencies, referred to as professional development. The agreement worldwide on the need for professional development represents one of the most important effects of globalization on the quality of Ph.D. education. The idea behind these skills is that impactful teaching, effective team-work, convincing presentation of complex contents, grant writing, managing people and budgets, working in multi-disciplinary teams and leadership skills are to be transferred from academic to professional settings. These skills enhance graduates’ employability, their ability to manage their own careers, and their sense of responsibility for making contributions to society.

A greater number of people are receiving Ph.D. degrees than ever before. What is the role of these early career researchers in the discussion on quality of doctoral education?

Nerad: Today’s doctoral students are globally savvy. Students from one country interact with students from numerous other countries, both in everyday lived reality (on campus, in the classroom, or in laboratory settings) and in virtual reality (via Internet-based communications, or in connection with international collaborative research projects).

They demonstrate the prevalence of two sets of distinct interests and behaviors. On the one hand, strong social and environmental awareness and interests, and on the other hand, they act as consumers in relation to doctoral education. Today’s early career researchers want to undertake socially relevant research and do so by creating new knowledge in a problem-based or inquiry-based mode of knowledge production, rather than a solely theory-driven mode.  They also behave as consumers picking and choosing a doctoral program that fits their interests and expectations, even if this leads them outside their home country. They approach doctoral study ready to make universities and departments work for them. They urge for a process of cooperative negotiation and agreements between doctoral students and their programs.

How much relevance have national governments given to the discussion of quality in doctoral education?

Nerad: It is important to understand that the discussion about Ph.D. quality emerges in a context where research training is seen as a means for increasing innovation capacity and competitiveness among societies. Increasingly, more national governments have enforced mechanisms that guarantee efficiency, effectiveness and quality assurance. On the one hand, governments grant more autonomy to their universities and delegate quality assessment tasks to independent accreditation agencies, on the other hand supra-national organizations increasingly develop overarching policies and reform standards. Some assessment tasks move up from the national to the supra-national level, some move down to the institutional level, and some move out to independent quality assurance agencies.

Is there any quality assurance model that is more accepted to measure the quality of doctoral education?

Nerad: Well, the classic input-throughput-output model from the business world has gained acceptance to the sphere of doctoral education in many countries. This means that the Ph.D. is conceptualized as a productive process that has inputs.  These are the students, professors, research infrastructure and political context. After students have been admitted, they proceed through a phase of “throughput” when they are advised/supervised, take courses, participate in professional activities, and undertake research training.  The outputs are the completed research projects in form of a dissertation or a number of peer-reviewed publications, and the production of a scholar per se. Increasingly countries include placement information and satisfaction of their Ph.Ds holders as quality criteria. In the U.S. we more and more try to assess the impact Ph.Ds have in society as a quality measure.

What are the effects of this standardized model on the doctoral education systems?

Nerad: The standardized quality assurance model has had a set of positive effects. It has created not only a more uniform but also a more transparent system of quality assurance, and these factors in turn have given researchers more mobility. It is easier for doctoral candidates to study and work at foreign universities, and they have more opportunities for employment outside their home countries after graduation.  But, it has also brought a number of dynamic tensions. For example, a national government that has invested in a national labor force wants its doctorate-holding citizens to return or remain at home. As education at the doctoral level is very expensive, it is heavily subsidized in the U.S. and elsewhere through research grants and fellowships. The dynamic tension between individual interests and national agendas will continue to emerge periodically as an issue for discussion.

Another common tension is the goal of opening higher education and doctoral education to all citizens and creating a diverse student body can quickly find itself in conflict with meeting immediate financial needs or earning world-class rankings. A university facing reduced governmental contributions faces the temptation to admit more highly qualified international doctoral candidates who can pay substantially higher fees instead of admitting a local candidate from a historically underrepresented group who may need financial assistance in order to pursue his or her doctorate.

An additional challenge emerges between efficiency and inducing innovation. The goal to educate doctoral students to be creative and innovative—with all the false starts and learning from experience that entails—is in conflict with the goal for doctoral students to be completed within a standard period of time, often the shortest time possible. These types of discussions are happening across graduate schools, deans and program chairs in European, Asian and North American universities frequently.

A further tension is the greater financial support and higher status of doctoral programs in STEM and related disciplines and subsequently greater influence within their institutions by comparison with doctoral programs in the humanities, the arts and the social sciences (except business administration), which seem to be losing resources as well as institutional status.

If these tensions are so common, are universities taking any actions to achieve agreement on how to measure the quality of doctoral education?

Nerad: Well, the glass that may look half-empty begins to look half-full when we notice that more and more universities and organizations representing universities are working proactively to find solutions. The United States, once the sole leader in flexible, bottom-up quality-management schemes, now shares that leadership with other countries such as Australia and New Zealand. In addition, organizations like the European University Association’s Council for Doctoral Education are urging the passage of legislation that will allow doctoral education to be evaluated and rewarded not only for its output numbers and rankings but also for its provision of dynamic, diverse research contexts and high-quality supervision.

The hope is that the newly intensified and competitive international research context, along with an increased national focus on the role of doctoral education in building the knowledge economy, will produce a new generation of Ph.D. graduates who are especially committed to and capable of defining and solving urgent societal problems at home.

Learn more about the book in this link

Conceptual Approaches to Doctoral Education: A Community of Practice

 A silent paradigm shift has occurred in doctoral education. Preparing the next generation of PhDs to function successfully in and contribute to today’s and tomorrow’s global environment requires an approach that goes beyond conceptualizing an apprenticeship model and institutes communities of practice, which should include recognition of peers as learning partners. Coordinated efforts are also needed across many levels inside and outside the university. Because more is being asked of the next generation of researchers—in addition to the traditional academic research competencies, they now need professional skills as well as cultural competencies—what is required today at the PhD level is the kind of purposeful structuring that allows for transformative doctoral education. 

Nerad, M. (2012)  Conceptual Approaches to Doctoral Education: A Community of Practice, Alternation, No 19,2, pp. 57–72. 

Download:  Conceptual Approaches to Doctoral Education

 An earlier version of this article appeared in Acta Academica Supplementum 2011, 2:198–216. (ISSN 0587-2405) Available at: http://www.ufs.ac.za/templates/ journals.aspx?article=1264.

 

 

International Assessment: Developing a Research Agenda for (Post)graduate Education and Collaboration

This article assesses the current state of internationalisation and international experiences, focusing in particular on science and engineering fields. It discusses initial results from a workshop, sponsored by the US National Science Foundation and organised by the Center for Innovation and Research in Graduate Education at the University of Washington, to develop an interdisciplinary research agenda aimed at launching and coordinating empirically driven research on international graduate education. It concludes by identifying areas for future research.

Blumenfield T., & Nerad, M. (2012). International Assessment: Developing a Research Agenda for (Post)graduate Education and Collaboration. Australian Universities Review. Vol. 54.  No 1, pp. 72-83.

Download: International Assessment

 

Early Career of Recent U.S. Social Science PhDs. Learning and Teaching

In this article, we analyze findings of the largest, most comprehensive survey of the career paths of social science PhD graduates to date, Social Science PhDs Five+ Years Out (SS5)SS5 surveyed more than 3,000 graduates of U.S. PhD programmes in six social science fields six to ten years after earning their PhD. The survey collected data on family, career and graduate school experiences. Like previous studies in Australia, the U.K., the U.S.A. and Germany, SS5 found that graduates several years after completing their education had mostly positive labour market experiences, but only after undergoing a transitional period of insecurity and uncertainty.

Most SS5 doctoral students wanted to become professors, despite the difficult academic job market and the existence of a non-academic market for PhD labour. Many respondents’ career pathways included a delayed move into a faculty tenure-track position, but exceptionally few moved from a faculty tenure-track position into another labour market sector. Respondents reported that their PhD programmes had not trained them well in several skills important for academic and non-academic jobs. Men’s and women’s career paths were remarkably similar, but, we argue, women ‘subsidised’ gender equality in careers by paying higher personal costs than men. We conclude with recommendations.

Morrison, R., Rudd E., & Nerad, M. (2011). Early Career of Recent U.S. Social Science PhDs. Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Science. Vol. 4, issue 2, pp. 6-29.  Download