Supporting doctoral students in their professional identity projects

Abstract

Doctoral programmes and education do not necessarily pay enough attention to the professional development of the student. Doctoral students may struggle with an unclear conception of who they can and want to become as a result of their doctoral studies. This paper describes an event that aimed to provide doctoral students with opportunities to reflect collectively upon and resource their identity projects. In this course academic work was approached as ‘practical activity’ that can be discussed in terms of its tactics, politics, morals and subjects. After identifying the specific features of the course design, the authors assess its usability beyond the local context.

Keywords:

• special issue
• doctoral education
• academic work
• professional identity
• practice theory