Despite considerable research that has provided a better understanding of the challenges of doctoral education, it remains the case that only 57% of all doctoral students will complete their programs.This groundbreaking volume sheds new light on determinants for doctoral student success and persistence by examining the socialization and developmental experiences of students through multiple lenses of individual, disciplinary, and institutional contexts. This book comprehensively critiques existing models and views of doctoral student socialization, and offers a new model that incorporates concepts of identity development, adult learning, and epistemological development. The contributors bring the issues vividly to life by creating five student case studies that, throughout the book, progressively illustrate key stages and typical events of the socialization process. These fictional narratives crystallize how particular policies and practices can assist or impede the formation of future scholars.The book concludes by developing practical recommendations for doctoral students themselves, but most particularly for faculty, departments, universities, and external agencies concerned with facilitating doctoral student success.

About the Author
Susan K. Gardner is Associate Professor of Higher Education at the University of Maine, in Orono. She writes and presents widely on issues related to doctoral student success and development, and recently published The Development of Doctoral Students: Phases of Challenge and Support. Pilar Mendoza is currently Assistant Professor in Higher Education at the University of Florida, having previously served as an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Oklahoma State University. Her research focuses on the impact of academic capitalism on the public good of higher education. Ann E. Austin is Professor of Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education at Michigan State University, where she twice has held the Mildred B. Erickson Distinguished Chair (from 2005-2008, and again in 2014 until taking a leave in 2015 to assume another role). She is now serving as a Program Director in the Division of Undergraduate Education at the National Science Foundation (on leave from MSU). Her research concerns faculty careers and professional development, teaching and learning in higher education, the academic workplace, organizational change, doctoral education, and reform in science, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. She is a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) and the Past-President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), and she was a Fulbright Fellow in South Africa (1998). She is a founding co-leader of the Center for the Integration of Research, Teaching, and Learning (CIRTL), and was the Principal Investigator of an NSF-funded grant to study organizational change strategies that support the success of women scholars in STEM fields. Her work is widely published, including Educating Integrated Professionals: Theory and Practice on Preparation for the Professoriate (co-edited with C. Colbeck and K. O'Meara, 2008), Rethinking Faculty Work: Higher Education's Strategic Imperative (co-author

Reviews

"The clearly articulated purpose of this book, edited by Drs. Susan Gardner and Pilar Mendoza, is to expand and critique the existing models of doctoral education while providing alternative views of the student socialization process, especially in the developmental processes involved. In some of the chapters in this text the editors clearly accomplish their goals and truly provide new research and alternative views... This book is one of very few that acknowledge that graduate students may encounter challenges that require them to revisit aspects of their social and academic development they experienced as undergraduates."

Journal of College Student Development

"This book brings together the work of an impressive group of scholars to highlight, synthesize, and reflect on key research and findings concerning the process through which doctoral students become scholars. It opens the door for new theoretical perspectives to explain and guide the process as well as creative strategies for enhancing the effectiveness of doctoral education. Through the research reported in this book and the vignettes describing the lives of students diverse in their disciplines, gender, race and ethnicity, age, and partner status, this volume advances our understanding of the complex and diverse ways in which individuals experience doctoral education. It moves the field forward not only by synthesizing what we know, but by identifying important directions for future research."

Ann E. Austin

Book Information
ISBN 9781579224455
Author Susan K. Gardner
Format Paperback
Page Count 296
Imprint Stylus Publishing
Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
Weight(grams) 394g