This conceptual study examines the challenges involved in a new context of postgraduate education that emphasizes timely degree completion, skill development and employability, while still seeking to uphold a commitment to a genuine education ('Bildung'). Findings from two recent empirical studies set the scene for this inquiry since they raise…

Under the constructivist learning paradigm, which emphasises authenticity as a required condition for learning, distance educators have been striving to create authentic learning environments that reflect the real world. However, it is inevitably challenging to make an online learning environment authentic for learners when it is ultimately…

This paper investigates the evolving landscape of European doctoral education and its impact on the doctorate's identity and value. It conducts a comprehensive analysis, drawing from both extensive literature review and empirical data from the Portuguese context. This examination reveals intricate changes in doctoral education, driven by a…

The education doctorate program fills an essential niche that allows practitioners to earn a doctorate and make a difference in educational practice and policy. However, critics claim EdD programs are failing to effectively prepare students. There has been a push for the reinvention of the EdD which includes improving EdD student confidence in…

This autoethnographic essay captures fifteen-years of struggles and ephemeral victories associated with developing and sustaining a critical educational leadership doctoral program within a conservative college of education located in the Midwestern United States. Despite having to grapple with non-critical faculty members and neoliberal forces…

Traci L. Hodges is a doctoral student in the Educational Leadership and Policy Studies program at the University of Missouri St. Louis. Her research interests are comparative adult education, African American adult education, and critical education. Having witnessed freedom protests in Madrid, Spain, and Ferguson, Missouri, she shares her…

For over 25 years, my lecture driven teaching strategies that included passive learning outcomes has prevailed in my K12 and higher education teaching. The requirement to help doctoral students identify and understand their epistemology, ontology and worldview within a research methods class created a dilemma regarding the appropriateness of…

Educational scholars concur that research preparation courses should engage doctoral students with methodological differences and epistemological controversies. Mary Metz and Nancy Lesko recently published articles describing how courses guided by this aim engender self-doubt for students. Neither scholar is entirely convinced that self-doubt is…

This article examines two questions: (a) In what ways can doctoral-level learning experiences help executive-level P-12 leaders to develop instructional leadership expertise and commitment to high levels of learning among diverse student groups? (b) How can educators be supported in this learning within the context of an Education Doctorate (EdD)?…

This article explores theological dimensions of the academic vocation, taking its cue from the research undertaken by the Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate, which envisions the scholar as a steward of an academic discipline. We contend, however, that the Christian scholar's sense of stewardship extends beyond one's academic…

This paper is a reflective account exploring the value of using action research in a relatively new context in the United Kingdom; the development of community renewable-energy projects. There is a strong rationale for using action research in this setting due to the synergies between the principles and practice of action research and localised…

In the past decade there has been a marked push for the development of employability skills to be part of the PhD process. This push is generally by stakeholders from above and outside the PhD process, i.e. government and industry, who view skills as a "summative product" of the PhD. In contrast, our study interviewed stakeholders inside…

Definitions are central to both the practice and the power of leadership. This deceptively simple supposition was the basis for an elective doctoral leadership seminar at Illinois State University designed and taught by Lyman in Fall 2005, and replicated by Gardner in Spring 2007. The authors featured the same texts and stimulated students'…