With the Skills for Life strategy came new professional qualifications for teachers of literacy to adults. Having learned to be literate themselves in the mid-to-late twentieth century, how ready are these teachers to take on the challenges of preparing their learners for the literacies of the new millennium? This paper comes out of doctoral…

The literature on preparing educational leaders does not take into account what we can learn from other disciplines that have been successful in preparing professionals for social justice over a long period of time. To address this gap in the literature, this case study examined the policies and practices of an exemplary Department of Counseling…

The relationship doctoral students develop with their advisor is reputed to be one of the most important of their graduate education. Research shows that advisors play a critical role in many aspects of the doctoral degree process. However, the literature is sparse regarding doctoral students' perceptions of the positive and negative attributes of…

Mahdi is an Iraqi doctoral candidate in adult and higher education and Bright is her doctoral advisor. The two have been involved in intensive dialogue about how they see their cultures, how they perceive the conflict in the Middle East, and how andragogical theory offers hope for changing learning and teaching approaches that can influence…

International academic mobility is an aspect of internationalization that is changing rapidly in terms of volume, scope, and impact. Although much of the attention and research on mobility has focused on undergraduate students participating in short-term study abroad, internships, and exchange experiences, the new push to develop international…

As a first-year superintendent, Nick Polyak has yet to conduct a search for a principal to lead one of his four schools in the Illinois Valley Central School District in Chillicothe, Ill. When that opportunity does come, Polyak is quite sure he'll be skeptical of any candidate whose curriculum vitae lists courses or entire degrees completed in…

Eight Canadian universities partnered to establish a Collaborative Health Informatics PhD/Postdoc Strategic Training Program (CHPSTP). The 6-year goal was to increase research capacity in health informatics in Canada. Three cohorts of 20 trainees participated in the training, which included online Research Learning Experiences, annual face-to-face…

Community colleges in the United States face shortages of leaders prepared to assume administrative positions in the 21st century. To respond to this shortage, graduate programs are emerging with a specific emphasis on community college leadership; other graduate programs offer broader curricula focused on educational leadership, policy, or higher…

In Europe, third-cycle studies may be undergoing structural changes because of the orientation of the Bologna process. This article intends to shed light on the question of how and whether the ongoing changes might mean that we are in the process of reconstructing the university offer of doctoral degree studies. The authors look at the particular…

The formulaic styles of dissertation writing inherited from the sciences continue to influence dissertation writers in social sciences, and in particular TESOL and applied linguistics. Some scholars both within and outside the U.S. recommend that we expand the options for dissertation writers beyond these narrow conventions ([Eisner, 1997];…

What is a PhD? People answer this question too often by succumbing to the bureaucratic lure. They describe formal processes, "outcomes", time to degree, funding, training in teaching--indeed, almost everything except central intellectual attraction and personal focus of the PhD enterprise: deep study. Certainly in United States PhD programs, the…

Since 2005 there has been an explosion of interest and debate about alternative futures for the doctorate in education. The authors take the debate from the abstract to the concrete by describing a signature pedagogy in doctoral education that combines theory, applied scholarship, and the wisdom of practice in new ways. They describe…

This article examines issues associated with the preparation of doctoral-level personnel to assume interdisciplinary scholarship and leadership roles in early intervention (EI). Following a review of national reports focused on EI doctoral leadership training, the preparation of educational researchers, and interdisciplinary doctoral programs in…

Sixty doctoral students and 34 faculty members were interviewed in departments identified as having high and low doctoral student completion rates at one institution in the United States in order to examine the cultural contexts and structures that facilitate or hinder doctoral student completion. This paper outlines the differences in…

The Ed.D. program at the University of Southern California focuses on leadership in urban education. The article describes the rationale and guiding principles for the program and its design in terms of core knowledge, inquiry, signature pedagogy, concentrations, and capstone experiences. The article concludes with an assessment of our…