“What’s the Middle Ground? Am I Ever Going to be the Perfect Teacher?:” Self-Study of a Doctoral Student’s Acculturation Process

Abstract

In higher education, doctoral training has been identified as a process of stewardship development whereby individuals learn the knowledge and skills required to advance their respective disciplines. Self-study of teacher education practices is one approach that has gained the interest of doctoral students to help them understand their own development whilst also forging recommendations for others in publications. In this selfstudy, we worked to understand the experiences of Shrehan, a teacher from England beginning doctoral study in the USA. Shrehan had no experience teaching at the college level prior to moving to the USA, and she saw self-study as an opportunity to understand her development and acculturation into an unfamiliar system of higher education. Data were collected through journaling, critical-friend discussions, and artefacts, as well as student data in the form of surveys, exit slips, and focus-group interviews. Qualitative data analysis of Shrehan's experiences was guided by the four stages of acculturation theory-honeymoon, culture shock, adjustment, and recovery. Shrehan's journey emphasizes the importance of getting to know undergraduate students and building rapport as key aspects of teaching at the college level. Self-study provided Shrehan with a heightened personal-identity awareness that increased her cultural sensitivity and broadened her worldview. Results are discussed with reference to acculturation theory and future directions for research are provided.

Leveraging critical friendship to navigate doctoral student role transitions

“…Students and faculty have effectively initiated self-study to adjust to new settings, identify support needs and improve practice, due to a lack of systems in place to assist students with acculturation and connection (Gregory et al , 2017; Gregory and Burbage, 2017; Butler et al , 2014; Foot et al , 2014; Li, 2018; Lynch et al , 2018). In doing so, the common experiences of exhaustion, role conflict and novice-expert mindsets were resolved through dialogue, collaboration and reflection.…”

‘A critical autoethnography of a doctoral students’ research journey: learning to take risks in the academy’

“…Considering this, I had very little guidance from academic literature throughout my program of those in similar positions to myself. With the exception of Cameron (2012) and Lynch, Richards, and Pennington (2018), there has been very little literature that has documented the lived experiences of female D-PETE students learning to be teacher educators, from a personal narrative perspective.…”

“…This paper specifically focuses on how my D-PETE program prepared me for a future in research and how I was interacting with and negotiating the culture of the academy. I have written elsewhere using self-study research about how my acculturation to the U.S, teaching role, and the juggling of multiple identities throughout this process (Lynch et al, 2018). Through using the work of Michel Foucault (1980Foucault ( , 1990Foucault ( , 1995Foucault ( , 2002, I wanted to rethink my research approach and about how I positioned myself ontologically.…”

“…In the first year of my D-PETE program, I had completed and published a self-study research project (see Lynch et al [2018]). During this time, I had sought the perspectives of my LEARNING TO TAKE RISKS AUTOETHNOGRAPHY 15 students in the PETE classes I taught with the desire to improve my teaching practice, and the methodological technique recommended for use was focus groups (Lynch et al, 2018). A colleague unbeknown to the students interviewed the students on my teaching.…”

Using the reading to learn methodology to teach isiZulu reading in a grade three class: a teacher’s self-study

“…Undertaking self-study assists the researcher to uncover their working environment which influences their daily practice and identity (Lynch et al, 2018). As stated in previous chapters, the purpose of this study was primarily to improve my teaching of Grade 3 isiZulu home language reading using the R2L methodology.…”