Conceptualising manifestations and shapers of doctoral student agency: A subject-centered approach

Conceptualising manifestations and shapers of doctoral student agency: A subject-centered approach

• Sun, Xiujuan The Education University of Hong Kong
• Cheng, Wing Tung Michelle The Education University of Hong Kong

Journal of Further and Higher Education, 2022

Routledge

2022

• Q Philosophy of Education, Educational System & School At Different Levels
  • QG Adult, Lifelong & Continuing Education
    • QGB Professional Continuing Education

Doctoral Education Agency Subject-centred Approach Agentic Manifestations Experiences of Candidature

• Hong Kong

• 1997.7 onwards

• Post-Secondary Education

The growing complexity of doing a PhD necessarily demands candidates to robustly exercise their agency in navigating the doctoral journey. However, the conceptualisation of how students use their agency across multiple facets of their studies has yet to receive due scholarly attention. Drawing on the subject-centred sociocultural view on agency, this study analysed life story interviews conducted with 16 doctoral students in Hong Kong. Findings show that participants’ agency was manifested both in socially and collectively organised enterprises (proactive engagement in a wide array of developmental opportunities, responsiveness to situational research problems, contestation against unsupportive institutional cultures) and as individual-level strategic perspectives and actions (self-management of everyday emotions, imaginative construction of post-graduation prospects). Concurrently, the results shed light on the inextricable and complex linkages between the enactment of agency and the personal, relational, institutional, and broader higher education conditions delimiting students’ lived experiences of candidature. Implications for educational practices and future research beneficial to develop doctoral agency are discussed. Copyright © 2022 Informa UK Limited.

• English

Journal Articles

• 0309877X

• 10.1080/0309877X.2021.2020222

https://bibliography.lib.eduhk.hk/bibs/5ea0abda

2022-06-07