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Letter from the editors Anita Devos Monash University, Victoria
Catherine Manathunga Victoria University, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand
This Special Issue on doctoral education emerged out
to energetically take up Connell’s call to reframe postgrad-
of an Australian Association for Research in Education
uate supervision as teaching, interpreted later by Lee and
(AARE) symposium in 2009 that brought together a small
Green as a ‘call to pedagogy’. In our view, it is timely now
number of Australian researchers, sharing a common
to devote another issue of AUR to this topic. The field has
interest in the ongoing development of the theoretical
grown considerably in the intervening years, and shifts in
foundations of research into doctoral education. Entitled
the policy and global environments of higher education
‘Doctoral education, new pedagogies and the possibilities
foreground the importance of maintaining a critical and
of new knowledges’, the symposium aimed to ‘explore
engaged commentary.
what happens when we start to think and theorise about
In this Special Issue, we have sought to reflect on the
doctoral education differently’. Our interest was in ‘the
1985 article, and 1995 issue and its goals, and to consider
generative possibilities of re-theorising the space of doc-
current directions and questions in the field of what we
toral education…’. Many of the questions that concerned
now refer to as doctoral education. This shift in nomen-
the presenters centred on issues of knowledge, power
clature from postgraduate supervision and pedagogy to
and identity in doctoral education and pedagogy.
doctoral education – now widely referred to in policy cir-
Following this symposium, we approached the Board
cles as research training – reflects a greater harnessing of
of the Australian Universities’ Review (AUR), which
this form of higher education to the knowledge economy,
agreed to a Special Issue of the journal on doctoral educa-
and a sharper focus on the doctorate in its various forms
tion. We felt that this journal was a particularly appropri-
as opposed to Masters by Research degrees. The question
ate forum through which to disseminate our calls for a
of what’s in a name is taken up in some of the articles in
review of doctoral education research. Not only is AUR
this present issue, and in other recent publications (Boud
a long standing academic journal and source of commen-
& Lee 2009 for example).
tary on higher education in Australia and internationally,
This Special Issue sits within a lively field of scholarship
but it also has a long track record of publishing ground-
and commentary, in Australasia and globally. Doctoral edu-
breaking articles on doctoral education. It was in AUR’s
cation has emerged since the seminal 1995 AUR issue as
predecessor journal, Vestes, that R W Connell’s piece ‘How
a burgeoning international sub-field of higher education
to supervise a PhD’ first appeared in 1985. This article
research. Just a few of the recent and emerging contribu-
generated considerable discussion over the following
tions to this field include a Special Issue of Innovations in
decade and prompted a Special Issue of AUR in 1995 on
Education and Teaching International on ‘Supervision
‘Postgraduate Studies/ Postgraduate Pedagogy’, edited by
and Cultural Difference’ guest edited by Barbara Grant
Alison Lee & Bill Green.
and Catherine Manathunga (2011); an edited book by
The 1995 Special Issue has been one of the most popular in AUR’s history, reflecting a pressing need at the time
2
Letter from the editors, Anita Devos & Catherine Manathunga
Boud and Lee (2009); and a forthcoming edited book by Lee and Danby (in press, 2012). vol. 54, no. 1, 2012