A sociocultural view of doctoral students' relationships and agency

Abstract

Existing literature suggests that doctoral students' learning and experience are significantly influenced by their relationships with a wide range of people within and beyond academic settings. However, there has been little theoretical work focused on these issues, and questions of agency in doctoral study are in need of further attention. This paper draws on sociocultural theory in the analysis of interviews conducted with 33 doctoral students across four UK research-intensive universities. It focuses on agency and frames others as mediating students' experiences whether as embodied or represented in material, or imaginary form.

Keywords:

• doctoral education
• relationships
• agency

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the referees for their helpful comments on the first draft of this paper, Lynn McAlpine for her ongoing feedback and support through the analysis and writing, Alison Lee for her comments on agency, and Russell Francis for the many conversations about sociocultural theory. I also wish to acknowledge the rich pedagogic environment provided by the Oxford Centre for Sociocultural and Activity Theory Research (OSAT). The research reported here was conducted at the Centre for Excellence in Preparing for Academic Practice (University of Oxford), with data collected by myself and other members of the Next Generation of Social Scientists research team: Lynn McAlpine, David Mills, Gill Turner, Patrick Alexander, Susan Harris-Huemmert and Julia Paulson. The study was funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (through the CETL initiative), the OUP John Fell Fund, and the Oxford Learning Institute.

Notes

1. Ideal or idealised in this context refers to non-materiality or imagined form, rather than to ideal in the sense of something being appropriate or perfect.

2. Edward's (2005) concept of relational agency specifically refers to instances whereby the seeking and giving of assistance leads to the notion of the problem being worked on (object) being understood differently and the person seeking help aligning their (new) interpretations with those of the people helping them. It does not, therefore, include all examples in which students ask for help from others (e.g., when someone asks for help and their ideas of what they want help with remain unchanged). However, the forms of agency Edwards highlights in her development and discussion of the concept are more generally relevant to the current analysis.