Recognising that graduate supervisory practice is not an abstracted academic pursuit, but an activity that is subjectively bounded by content and context, impacted by the experiences and beliefs of supervisee and supervisor, this text explores the unique dynamics of graduate supervision in the Global South, as perceived and experienced by students and academics within those same contexts.
Bringing together contributions which reflect a rich diversity of perspectives on supervisory practices at regional universities in the Caribbean and South Pacific, Graduate Research Supervision in the Developing World explores how supervisors navigate unscripted supervisory terrain; contextualise supervisory best practices; establish roles and relationships, and work to understand supervisees’ needs. By highlighting the effect on graduate supervision of complex sociocultural interplay and the relationship between learning environments and student success, contributors look to locate best practices through analyses of stories of success and failure. As the contributors demonstrate, there is a need to restructure the standardised operation of graduate supervision across diverse faculties.
This text will be of great interest to graduate supervisors and their supervisees as well as scholars in the fields of continuing professional development and higher education, in international and comparative education and Sociology of Education.
Table of Contents:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
INTRODUCTION. Erik Blair, Danielle Watson and Shikha Raturi
PART ONE: Negotiating unscripted supervisory terrain
CHAPTER ONE: Peer learning and intercultural expectations of the PhD journey. Lynn Beckles
CHAPTER TWO: It takes a village? Diversifying and contextualising the supervisory team in graduate studies. Sara Amin
CHAPTER THREE: Understanding policies intended to guide graduate research supervision: Institutional remit versus personal supervisory practice. Erik Blair and Danielle Watson
PART TWO: Contextualising supervisory best practices
CHAPTER FOUR: Supervising graduate theses in Literary Studies at the University of the South Pacific. Matthew Hayward
CHAPTER FIVE: Research supervision at The University of the West Indies: The case of two veterans. Karen Sanderson Cole
CHAPTER SIX: Navigating research trajectories with supervisees in the Pacific Islands. Shikha Raturi, Dawn Gibson, Frank Thomas and Atul Raturi
PART THREE: Supervisory roles, responsibilities and relationships
CHAPTER SEVEN: Adjusting supervisory practices to suit student needs. Danielle Watson and Erik Blair
CHAPTER EIGHT: Reflecting on practice and beliefs can make graduate supervision a craft. Rawatee Maharaj-Sharma
CHAPTER NINE: Graduate students’ areas of perceived strengths and weaknesses in thesis writing. Jeremy Dorovolomo, Govinda Ishwar Lingam and Adrian Abishek Kumar
PART FOUR: Understanding supervisees' needs
CHAPTER TEN: A phenomenological study of the supervisory experiences of students engaging in doctoral research: A tomb or womb experience? Beular Mitchell
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Acknowledging the graduate student research experience: Lessons for supervisors from the auto-ethnographic writing of thesis acknowledgements and dedications pages. Greg Burnett and Shikha Raturi
CHAPTER TWELVE: Structural dimensions of doctoral supervision in regional universities: The case of the University of the South Pacific. Eberhard Weber and Andreas Kopf
FINAL REFLECTION. Erik Blair, Danielle Watson and Shikha Raturi
