‘This object really touched me’: using Le Guin’s carrier bag theory to explore stories of the self on an international professional doctorate development programme

ABSTRACT

This piece reflects on an innovative introductory workshop for an international professional doctorate development project based on Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’. In the session academic supervisors from four participating countries shared stories about their own experiences of doing a doctorate using a bag of everyday objects which reminded them of their time as students. The exercise gave the group an opportunity to begin to get to know each other and to appreciate the complexity and challenge that completing a doctorate whilst working and balancing other personal and family responsibilities entails. Drawing on humanist pedagogical approaches which value the inner world of the learner and taking inspiration from previous arts based approaches to identity work for education students and practitioners the piece argues for the importance of making space for story-telling about the self from the outset of professional doctorate programmes.

KEYWORDS:

• Professional doctorates
• working students
• carrier bag theory
• Le Guin
• story-telling

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the British Council [11023].

Notes on contributors

Jane O’Connor

Chun Cao obtained his PhD from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Afterwards, began working at Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University (NENU), China and is currently a professor at NENU. His research interests include intergroup contact, international student adjustment, as well as teacher education. His research samples mainly included Chinese international students sojourning in Belgium and Europe when pursuing his PhD at VUB and international students sojourning in China when working at NENU. In addition, he is primarily interested in quantitative methods when conducting his research activities.

Jane O’Connor is a Reader in Childhood Studies in the School of Education and Social Work at Birmingham City University. She co-leads the Children, Families and Communities research group. Jane supervises a range of doctoral students and leads the introductory module on the professional doctorate programme. Jane’s research focuses on children’s use of interactive digital technology and parents and educators’ attitudes towards young children’s use of technology. She is currently leading an international project exploring young children’s engagement with YouTube Kids.

Cao Chun

Chun Cao obtained his PhD from Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium. Afterwards, began working at Faculty of Education, Northeast Normal University (NENU), China and is currently a professor at NENU. His research interests include intergroup contact, international student adjustment, as well as teacher education. His research samples mainly included Chinese international students sojourning in Belgium and Europe when pursuing his PhD at VUB and international students sojourning in China when working at NENU. In addition, he is primarily interested in quantitative methods when conducting his research activities.

Pham Thi Thanh Hai

Pham Thi Thanh Hai obtained her PhD in Educational Management at Hanoi National University of Education, Vietnam. Afterwards, she is currently an associate professor at University of Education - Vietnam National University (VNU – UEd). Her research interests include governance in Higher Education institutions, teacher professional development, and as well as teacher education. In addition, her experience in research and publication with many international research teams, such as the United Kingdoms, Japan, Malaysia. Up to now, she has been participated in 10 successful educational projects and has published 60 national and international papers/reports on education.

Louise Wheatcroft

Jane O’Connor is a Reader in Childhood Studies in the School of Education and Social Work at Birmingham City University. She co-leads the Children, Families and Communities research group. Jane supervises a range of doctoral students and leads the introductory module on the professional doctorate programme. Jane’s research focuses on children’s use of interactive digital technology and parents and educators’ attitudes towards young children’s use of technology. She is currently leading an international project exploring young children’s engagement with YouTube Kids.

Louise Wheatcroft is a senior lecturer teaching primary English on the BA and PGCE Primary Education with QTS courses and has been working at Birmingham City University since 2008. Louise was a primary teacher and literacy coordinator in Birmingham and also completed 4 years as a volunteer for VSO in the Maldives working in teacher education before coming to BCU. Her research interests include literacy, digital literacy and supporting newly arrived families. Louise completed her PhD in 2020 at Birmingham City University on ‘Student teachers’ pedagogical knowledge building in relation to teaching digital literacy’.

Antuni Wiyarsi

Jane O’Connor is a Reader in Childhood Studies in the School of Education and Social Work at Birmingham City University. She co-leads the Children, Families and Communities research group. Jane supervises a range of doctoral students and leads the introductory module on the professional doctorate programme. Jane’s research focuses on children’s use of interactive digital technology and parents and educators’ attitudes towards young children’s use of technology. She is currently leading an international project exploring young children’s engagement with YouTube Kids.

Antuni Wiyarsi works as an Associate Professor of Chemistry Education at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She graduated with a Bachelor of Chemistry Education, Master of Chemistry, and Doctor of Science Education. Dr. Wiyarsi has been a lecturer since 2005, for several courses including learning innovation, curriculum innovation, models of teaching, educational research, teaching practice, chemistry for vocational and senior high school, general chemistry. She supervises undergraduate, post-graduate, and doctoral students of chemistry and science education. She also acts as the trainer for the chemistry and science teacher training program. Dr Wiyarsi‘s research interests includes context-based learning, Socio-scientific issues, scientific habits of mind, transferrable skills, STEM learning, chemical literacy, science/chemistry curriculum, technological pedagogical content knowledge and science teacher education

Nguyen Hoang Doan Huy

Nguyen Hoang Doan Huy is working as a researcher of The Institute of Educational Research – Hanoi National University of Education (HNUE) – Vietnam. Her main responsibilities are conducting research related to Vietnamese educational innovations, and improving student learning and teacher research. She is the co-author and editor of a number of books and papers on student learning, teacher teaching and research, student assessment and student engagement,… From 2020 to now, she is participating in a PhD program at Vietnam National University (VNU). The research direction she chose for her doctoral thesis is related to evaluating teacher professional development.

Thai-Huu Nguyen

Nguyen Thai Huu is following the PhD program on Educational Management at Hanoi National University, Vietnam. From 1998 up to now, he has been an English lecturer at the School of Foreign Languages, Cantho University. His work has involved teaching English language skills, translation and conducting extracurricular courses. He is also a grader of VSTEP (Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency). He is interested in educational research and educational quality management.

Le Thi Thu Lieu

Le Thi Thu Lieu has been working at Faculty of Educational Science, HoChiMinh City University of Education (HCMUE) as a lecturer. She had been a researcher at Institute for Educational Research, HCMUE for 13 years before moving to the Faculty of Educational Science, HCMUE since 2019. She has been keen to help pre-service and in-service students with raising professional self-awareness amongst them and developing their professional competencies, and drawing more attention to why teachers need to continuosly enhance their professional competencies. She has been also a student at Doctoral Program in Education Management at the Faculty of Educational Science, HCMUE. Her PhD thesis has been about professional development for teacher educators.

Tan Huynh

Mr. Tan Huynh obtained his PhD in Educational Management at Horizon University, Paris-France. He has been working as a senior researcher and lecturer at faculty of Pharmacy of Nguyen Tat Thanh University. Currently, he is the director of Foreign Languages Center of Nguyen Tat Thanh University. His research interests include governance in transformational leadership in education, teacher professional development, as well as Pharmaceutical Science. Besides, he experiences in research and publication with many domestic and international research teams, such as the UK, Korea and Singapore. He has been participated in 05 successful educational projects and published 15 national and international papers/reports on education and science.

Luu Hanh

Jane O’Connor is a Reader in Childhood Studies in the School of Education and Social Work at Birmingham City University. She co-leads the Children, Families and Communities research group. Jane supervises a range of doctoral students and leads the introductory module on the professional doctorate programme. Jane’s research focuses on children’s use of interactive digital technology and parents and educators’ attitudes towards young children’s use of technology. She is currently leading an international project exploring young children’s engagement with YouTube Kids.

Hanh Luu earned her Bachelor of Science in Nursing from the University of Wyoming, USA and her Master of Science in Nursing from Meiho University, Taiwan. Currently, she is working on her doctorate program in Nursing Managment. Her clinical background is in psychiatric health. From 2014 to now, she has been working in the Faculty of Nursing at Nguyen Tat Thanh University. She is in charge of nursing program curriculum development and international collaboration in the health science field. Besides teaching, Hanh Luu retains her clinical experience from being the country representative of Children’s Heartlink in Vietnam in which promotes and developes congenital cardiac care in developing countries.