From ‘Year 9 dropout’ to doctoral candidate: An autoethnographic journey of becoming (with friends)

ABSTRACT

In this article, I am joined by two academic colleagues to explore my personal narratives and experiences as a doctoral student, and to explicate the challenges and achievements of my pathway into doctoral studies. Positioning itself within the growing field of doctoral research, the article focuses on an exploration of three vignettes which identify important points in my unfolding stories of formation in becoming a doctoral student as an older person. This autoethnographic study draws on Transformative Learning Theory and the critical discourse understandings of Gee to examine my stories of becoming from school-leaver at 15 to doctoral student over four decades later. The study has three implications. First, it is important to recognise and appreciate alternate pathways to doctoral education. Second, that there is a need to better understand the complex formation of doctoral students within an academic research community; especially in regard to those from diverse or challenging backgrounds. Finally, the significance of seeing doctoral education as identity work and work of the soul, built as much on affective experiences and reflexivity as learning to perform and write as an academic, is key.

KEYWORDS:

• Auto-ethnography
• lifelong learning
• identity formation
• individuation
• transformative learning

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jennifer Kay Miles

Jennifer Kay Miles is a Doctoral Candidate and Teaching Associate in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia. Her work as an educator across Higher Education, Vocational Education and Training (VET) and Adult Community Education focuses on learning and identity formation as key to engaging fully with an abundant, passionate and purposeful life. Her practice is founded in collaborative inquiry and open-hearted learning spaces, to promote the strengths and abilities of the individuals and communities with whom she works and learns. Through a storytelling methodology, she works to hold her learners as they cultivate their own transformed perspectives on what is possible for them in life, and her current PhD research explores the transformative benefits of promoting this methodology in learning spaces of VET teacher professional development. Jennifer is an active member of the International Transformative Learning community.

Edwin Creely

Edwin Creely is a lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. He is an educator, academic, and writer with an interest in creativity, poetry, literacy (L1 and L2), theory and philosophy, digital pedagogy and technology, graduate education and learning. He has wide-ranging experience in education from primary and secondary to tertiary and adult education. His current projects include being an editor on a book about phenomenological inquiry in education, creativity, risk and failure in policy and practice, poetry pedagogy, research on doctoral education and an ethnographic investigation of an older adult poetry class. Core to Edwin's work is his interest in innovation and creative practices and bringing new models and perspectives to educational research and practice. He also has an abiding interest in phenomenology and its applications in research.

Marc Pruyn

Marc Pruyn is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University. His areas of expertise include humanities and citizenship education, curriculum, pedagogy, educational foundations and research methodologies. Marc worked as a bilingual primary school teacher in Los Angeles for nine years and earned a PhD from UCLA. Before moving to Melbourne in 2010, he was a faculty member for fourteen years at New Mexico State University.