INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN DOCTORAL WRITING

GROUPS

D r J e a n n i e D a n i e l sL a Tr o b e U n i v e r s i t y M e l b o u r n e A u s t r a l i a

Developing Capability

the Writing Group

The notion of Capability

How the two came together as research

Continuing the conversation

My work

La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria.

Faculty of Law & Management – Law, Accounting, Economics, Finance, Management & Tourism.

PhD candidates from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, fewer from European countries, as well as Australia.

Questions related to my role

How does doctoral study at La Trobe benefit these students?

What kind of professional identity is being built, or built upon? And

How to facilitate the doctoral process as identity development, agency, and negotiation of the role of knowledge worker?

Other benefits

Confidence

Self-awareness/identity

Awareness of difference and own agency/reflexivity

Changing ideas about how to ‘use’ their doctoral skills

Capability

‘a critique of other approaches to thinking about human well-being’

(Walker & Unterhalter 2007)

Transnational spaces

‘How the world is constituted by cross-border

relationships, patterns of economic, political

and cultural relations...

...the multiple and messy proximities through

which human societies have now become

globally interconnected and interdependent’

(Rizvi 2010, p 160)

The Research Questions

Does participation in doctoral writing groups lead to ‘Capability' through development of high level academic and self-management skills?

If so, how does this happen within the writing group?

Confidence with self (personal attributes) self assessed improvement in thinking at doctoral

level; a sense of purpose/sense of 'self'; clarity of future goals; self-assessment of personal and learner development.

Outward confidence (communicative attributes)

demonstrably increasing confidence, improved writing at doctoral level;

eagerness to give opinion; demonstrated skills in giving critique, and receiving

and acting on critique from peers.

Capability?

‘what makes it any different?’

A useful concept?

Just another way of looking at the pedagogy of the writing group?

How do we theorise and research the work we do with international students? And do it well?

References

Rizvi, F. 2010. International students and doctoral studies in transnational spaces. In: Walker, M. & Thomson, P. (eds.) The Routledge doctoral supervisor's companion:supporting effective research in education and the social sciences. London & New York: Routledge, 158-170.

Walker, M. & Unterhalter, E. 2007. The Capability Approach: its potential for work in education. In: Walker, M. & Unterhalter, E. (eds.) Amartya Sen's capability approach and social justice in education. New York: Palgrave McMillan, 1-18.