Professional Doctorate In Education Research Articles

The challenge of a distance learning professional doctorate in education

This article summarises research into the effectiveness of a distance learning doctorate in education (EdD). Drawing on an emerging literature which attempts to conceptualise professional doctorates as distinctive from the PhD, we developed a case‐study approach to investigate the EdD student experience. Four themes emerge which are developed into a model of professional outcomes: professionalisation; professional change; bridging the academic/professional divide; and professional self‐esteem. We argue none of these outcomes would have been achieved so effectively for these distance students without a highly structured but flexible support system.

Feminist sociology and feminist knowledges: Contributions to higher education pedagogies and professional practices in the knowledge economy

This article uses feminist methodologies of critical and personal reflections to consider the contributions that feminist sociology and sociology of education have made to developments in the pedagogies and practices of higher education, particularly professional and postgraduate education. First, the article reviews the contributions of women and feminists to developing feminist theories and methodologies over the last three or four decades. It considers, in particular, the ways in which these developments around the notions of personal and political have become more complex as generations of women as academics and students have entered the academy. These complexities are linked to the wider social and economic transformations and especially changing forms of liberalism, from social democracy, through economic liberalism to neo-liberalism. These developments are spelled out briefly and linked to changing forms of higher education. The second half of the article concentrates on developments in higher education and the mystification of postgraduate and professional education under neo-liberalism. A case study of the developments in doctoral and professional education is provided, with an emphasis on how women have become engaged in these practices. Consideration is also given to changing pedagogies and the practice of more personal pedagogies in higher education and how this has developed with respect to a professional doctorate in education. In conclusion, consideration is given to the prospects for the future of these changing developments and the contribution of feminist pedagogies and practices for the renewal of sociology and the sociology of education a d forms of knowledge within the academy.