Understanding the PhD as a Phase in Time

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to offer a contribution to the analysis of the time spent on researching and preparing a PhD thesis and its conceptualization as a ‘phase’. Prior research on PhD experiences used time to explain the doctorate in terms of the different lengths of time involved when comparing different disciplines and scientific areas of study (Bourdieu, 1983; Atkinson, 2000). To date, the PhD has not been considered as a genuine time experience. I intend to do so by bearing in mind the insights provided by time sociology frameworks. Thus, in this article it is assumed that respondents’ understanding of their PhD time as ‘a phase’ translates a deep experience of liminality, in which they understand themselves on the one hand as belonging simultaneously to a ‘now’ and a ‘then’ and, on the other, as being located in a linear temporal structure. In the light of the findings, it is suggested that the phase may be viewed as a key concept for theorizing the temporality of PhD experience

Student support through personal development planning: retrospection and time

“…In contrast, in the third year the future pressed heavily on the present in terms of the achievement of the degree and what lay beyond. Whereas the 'phase' (Araújo 2005) of the students' lives can be understood as a three-year rite of passage between school and becoming a graduate, the present meaning of this phase shifts quite dramatically from the first year, where the past is still viscerally present for students, to the third year, where the future impacts most strongly on the present. Thus although the degree might be seen to be one phase, in practice there are at least two major transitions reported by students.…”

“…Theorists of time, drawing on the pioneering work of George Herbert Mead, have pointed to the ways in which present time is created between past, present and future (Araújo 2005). This seems highly pertinent to students' understanding of the time of the first year as re-interpreted from the third year.…”

Tomorrow’s a mystery: constructions of the future and ‘un/becoming’ amongst ‘early’ and ‘late’ career academics

“…As we shall see, these perceptions and experiences relate to wider, pervasive policy and cultural trends in academia internationally. We consider how the present circumstances of our participants affect their constructions of their future in HE and of the future of academia as a whole, utilising the insights of authors such as Adam (1990Adam ( , 2007 and Araujo (2005) on the social construction of time. We are also drawing on a conception of precarity and 'precarization' utilised by Butler (2009aButler ( , 2009b and developed by Lorey (2015), relating to 'politically induced' forms of insecurity that are a direct product of neoliberalism.…”

On the problem of theorising: an insider account of research practice

“…Change was seen by many students as relative to the self understood as having been 'always' like that. In making sense of our data, we drew on theorists of time particularly the work of Barbara Adam (1995Adam ( , 2003, who distinguishes different dimensions of time as co-present: time as linear divisible clock time, temporality as our being in time, timing as in 'when' time and tempo the intensity of time, and also the work of Emília Araújo (2005), who analyses the ways in which present time is created between the past, present and future. We also drew on the work of Margaret Archer (2000) in thinking about the self, although surprisingly, given my own theoretical preoccupations with questions of agency, rather less than I would have expected.…”