DescriptionSizeFormat
Publisher version (open access)173 KBAdobe Acrobat PDFView/Open

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/922596

Title
Gender, power and PhD examination in Australia
Author/Creator
Monfries, Melissa;  Lovat, Terence
Description
Previous analyses revealed that even when PhDs were given the highest evaluations, they were frequently accompanied by negative remarks. It has been argued that examiners’ beliefs about their role may obstruct them in free acceptance of the original contributions to knowledge deemed to lie at the heart of the PhD. The resulting thought is that we may have constructed unwittingly a conservative doctoral regime that is more intent on protecting and maintaining extant structures than supporting innovation. Furthermore, research in social psychology has demonstrated that people in positions of power are motivated to maintain their high power base. The combination of these philosophical and psychological tenets guided the analysis of the discourse used in the examination of PhDs in the current study. A particular focus of this study was on gender differences in examiners’ comments with respect to the working of institutional and personal power. The results reinforced previous findings that both male and female examiners function predominantly in a conservative mode and so tend towards protesting and maintaining a custodial doctoral examination regime rather than encouraging innovation. There were differences, however, in the balance of expression between male and female examiners. Textual analysis seemed to imply that men were more interested in personal power than were female examiners.
Relation
AARE 2006 Conference. Proceedings of the AARE 2006 Conference (Adelaide, S.A. 26-30 November, 2006)
Relation
http://www.aare.edu.au/06pap/abs06.htm#M
Date
2007
Publisher
Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE)
Keyword(s)
doctoral education research;  Australia;  gender;  power
Resource Type
conference paper
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/922596
Identifier
ISSN:1324-9339
Language
eng
Full Text
Full Text
 
Image Thumbnail
34 Visitors 41 Hits 1 Downloads
Save/E-mail Citation
Citation Format
E-mail Address
Subject
"Gender, power and PhD examination in Australia"
 
OR