‘A critical autoethnography of a doctoral students’ research journey: learning to take risks in the academy’

ABSTRACT

What is missing in present-day physical education teacher education research is the individual female doctoral student perspective and how individuals come to understand academic research culture within the neoliberal university. Through a critical autoethnography, this paper uncovered a transformative learning journey of one doctoral student as she encountered the field of research in higher education. After taking a critically orientated qualitative methods class, the doctoral student recognised that the neoliberal university includes a research agenda entwined in politics, finding that neophyte researchers should be aware of the ‘mess’ (Cheek, J. (2017). Qualitative inquiry, research marketplaces, and neoliberalism. In N. K. Denzin, & M. D. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative Inquiry in Neoliberal Times (pp. 19–36). New York: Routledge). By questioning how one is disciplined in research and through becoming aware of normalising techniques, the doctoral student interrogated her research methods and philosophical orientation. Ethnodrama (Denzin, N. K. (2010). The qualitative manifesto. Walnut Creek: Left Coast Press) and autoethnography provided the doctoral student with an opportunity for alternate meaning-making, which can be productive in understanding the journey of becoming in academia.

KEYWORDS:

• Higher education
• Foucault
• becoming
• neoliberal
• doctoral student
• critical autoethnography

Acknowledgments

We are immensely grateful to Stephen Palmer, Senior Lecturer at the University of East London for his comments on an earlier version of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr. Shrehan Lynch is a Lecturer of Secondary Education at the University of East London where she is responsible for physical education teacher education programmes. Specifically, she educates teachers on all teacher training routes including PGCE, School Direct, and Apprenticeship programmes. Her research focuses on teacher education, physical education, and social justice, framed through critical and feminist theories.

Dr. Aaron Kuntz is Professor of Educational Studies at the University of Alabama where he teaches graduate courses in qualitative inquiry and foundations of education. His research focuses on developing materialist methodologies–ways of producing knowledge that take seriously the theoretical deliberations of critical theory, relational materialism, and poststructuralism. His latest book, Qualitative Inquiry, Cartography, and the Promise of Material Change, was recently published by Routledge Press.

ORCID

Shrehan Lynch http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8939-3143

Notes

1. I refers to the first author of the paper.