The Routledge Doctoral Student's Companion: Getting to Grips With Research in Education and the Social Sciences

In the contemporary world it is clear that the need to study beyond Masters Level is increasing in importance for a wide range of practitioners in diverse professional settings. Students across the world are choosing doctorates not only to become career academics, but to go beyond the academic arena, in order to make a personal and educational, as well as an economic investment, in their workplace careers and their lives. However for many doctoral students, both full-time and part-time, navigating the literature and key issues surrounding doctoral research can often be a challenge.
Bringing together contributions from key names in the international education arena, The Routledge Doctoral Student’s Companion is a comprehensive guide to the literature surrounding doctorates, bringing together questions, challenges and solutions normally scattered over a wide range of texts. Accessible and wide-ranging, it covers all doctoral students need to know about:


what doctoral education means in contemporary practice
forming an identity and knowledge as a doctoral student
the big questions which run throughout doctoral practice
becoming a researcher
the skills needed to conduct research
integrating oneself into a scholarly community.

Offering an extensive and rounded guide to undertaking doctoral research in a single volume, this book is essential reading for all full-time and part-time doctoral students in education and related disciplines.

Pat Thomson is Professor of Education at the University of Nottingham, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia and a Visiting Professor at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia.
Melanie Walker is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Nottingham, and is also Extraordinary Professor at the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.

Part I Introduction Why the doctoral companions? Pat Thomson & Melanie Walker 1. The changing nature of the doctorate and doctoral students Pat Thomson & Melanie Walker Part II Becoming and being a doctoral student 2. Ignorance in educational research - How not knowing shapes new knowledge? Jon Wagner 3. When qualitative meets quantitative: Conversations about the nature of knowledge Erica McWilliam & Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan 4. Interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity - Diverse purposes of research: theory-oriented, situation-oriented, policy-oriented Des Gasper 5. The necessity and violence of theory Stephen J. Ball 6. Bringing theory to doctoral research Kalervo N. Gulson & Robert J. Parkes 7. Seeking the single thread: the Conceptual Quest Feng, Su, Jon Nixon and Bob Adamson 8. Theory and narrative in the production of knowledge Jean Barr 9. Making sense of supervision: Deciphering feedback Anthony Paré 10. Entering the gates of the elect: obtaining the doctorate in education in South Africa Crain Soudien 11. Weaving the threads of doctoral research journeys Jerry Wellington Part III Coming to terms with research practice 12. Its been said before and we’ll say it again – research is writing Pat Thomson & Barbara Kamler 13. Getting to grips with research in education and the social sciences - Research questions: what’s worth asking and why? John Pryor 14. Research questions: What’s worth asking and why? Andrew Brown 15. There is no golden key’: overcoming problems with data analysis in qualitative research Helen Colley 16. Dealing with analysis Ann-Marie Bathmaker 17. Researching with large datasets: learning to think big when small is beautiful Andy Noyes 18. Doing data analysis Stephen Gorard 19. Argumentation and the Doctoral Thesis: theory and practice Monica McLean 20. Writing research Maria Piantanida & Noreen B. Garman 21. 'Guilty knowledge' - the (im)possibility of ethical security in social science research- qualitative research: ethics in the swamplands Kevin Williams 22. Dangerous reflexivity: rigor, responsibility, and reflexivity in qualitative research Wanda S. Pillow 23. Emotions and being a doctoral student Chaya Herman Part IV Making a contribution to knowledge 24. Quality agenda and doctoral work: The tactic, the new agendas, the changing contexts Lyn Yates 25. Generating practitioner knowledge through practitioner action research: moving from local to public knowledge Gary L. Anderson & Kathryn Herr 26. Coyote and Raven talk about equivalency of other/ed knowledges in research Peter Cole & Pat O’Riley 27. Knowledge in context: Whose knowledge and for what context? Qing Gu 28 . Open access and the ongoing transformation of scholarly publishing: A guide for doctoral students Robert Lucas & John Willinsky 29. Inner university, knowledge workers, and limitality Tomasz Szkudlarek 30. Global students for global education research? Ian Menter, Joana da Silveira & Radhika Gorur 31. The impact of research on education policy: the relevance for doctoral researchers Bob Lingard Part V Conclusion 32. Last words: why doctoral study? Pat Thomson & Melanie Walker