Sara Delamont

Critical mass and doctoral research: Reflections on the Harris report

ABSTRACT Drawing on empirical research in a number of academic disciplines, and on contrasting doctoral research training in laboratory sciences with that in social sciences, the article examines the notion of ‘critical mass˚s, which has informed recent policy and debate about research training in the UK. Based on a critique of the Harris Review of Postgraduate Education, it is argued that such policy perspectives are insensitive to the fundamental differences between academic cultures and modes of organisation in different academic disciplines.

Creating a Delicate Balance: the doctoral supervisor's dilemmas

Abstract Central to the problems facing supervisors of doctoral students is creating a delicate balance between dominating the students research and neglecting it. Too much control threatens the originality of the PhD and the autonomy of the novice researcher; too little can delay completion and even lead to total failure. Here, supervisors reflect on their successes and failures in the management of that delicate balance. They frequently construct their accounts using contrasts between the past and the present: comparing their own experiences as students with how they supervise now, or comparing current practice with their own early experiences as a supervisor. Such individual accounts and their characteristic rhetorical formats reflect contemporary policy themes at a more general level within the academic profession.

Professions and Powerlessness: Female marginality in the learned occupations

This paper argues that the existing sociological literature on the learned professions and on scientific occupations has developed in ways that are now theoretically unproductive. One sympton of this dead-end is the failure of sociologists of the professions to include research on scientists in their discussions and vice versa. A second symptom is the lack of attention to the implications of the work of Jamous, Peloille. and Bourdieu in both the sociology of scientists and of professions. The third symptom of the malaise is the failure to generate sociologically plausible explanations for the marginalisation of female entrants to science and the professions. The paper argues that a novel direction for sociological argument can be derived by remedying the three symptoms simultaneously.

The nun in the toilet: urban legends and educational research

This article reports and analyzes “urban legends” told about schools. The data are taken from three earlier studies of British pupils transferring from primary to secondary school. Five urban legends are discussed, and several others are mentioned. The interpretation is along the line of structural analysis. The author concludes that research into urban legends can widen the scope of educational ethnography.

Gender and British Postgraduate Funding Policy: a critique of the Winfield Report

ABSTRACT This research note critically reviews the ESRC‐sponsored Winfield Report on Ph.D. completion rates and the allocation of research studentships. It is argued that the report was insensitive to issues of gender, and failed to consider research relevant to that topic. In consequence, the Winfield Report, and policies implemented on the basis of it, incorporate unexamined assumptions about social science doctorates and the students pursuing higher degrees. The model social science student portrayed is a young, geographically mobile male. Female candidates, especially those of mature age, are likely to be disadvantaged by current policies and their presuppositions.

Writing about teachers: How British and American Ethnographic texts describe teachers and teaching

Abstract It is argued that qualitative research on teachers and teaching should become self-conscious and reflexive about the ways in which it constructs the books, papers, and articles which report its findings. An analysis of four texts—two American and two British—reveals differences in the ways in which teachers are described in texts reflecting variations in the theories underpinning qualitative research in the two countries.

Research Note: Citation and Social Mobility Research: Self Defeating Behaviour?

The citation patterns of schools of researchers studying social mobility in Britain are examined, and systematic neglect by each school of the work of the others demonstrated.

Procedural Display and the Authenticity of Classroom Activity: A Response to Bloome, Puro, and Theodorou

(1990). Procedural Display and the Authenticity of Classroom Activity: A Response to Bloome, Puro, and Theodorou. Curriculum Inquiry: Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 63-69.

Women's Training Roadshows and the ‘Manipulation’ of Schoolgirls’ Career Choices

Abstract A mesh of social processes contribute to the predominance of women in a narrow range of low paid, low status and low skilled jobs. The views that women and girls themselves hold on the types of work for which they are best suited are one element of this mesh. Womens Training Roadshows are an example of strategies which aim to widen the options that are considered by schoolgirls as part of their transition from school to work. This paper locates Roadshows in the context of similar initiatives and goes on to consider some of the benefits of this approach.

Feminism and the Teacher’s Work

This essay is divided into seven parts. First we define feminism and locate feminism in relation to postfeminism and postmodernism. Then we outline how the feminist movement of the nineteenth century (called First-Wave Feminism) was particularly concerned to open up educational institutions to women and create careers for feminists. Then the chapter moves to the present day and provides a feminist perspective upon the research on recruitment to teaching and initial training. Then we set out the ways in which data have been gathered on the teacher’s work, emphasizing the feminist critiques of the methods. Bearing those critiques in mind, we rehearse the main findings on the teacher’s work, especially the work of classroom teaching, exploring both the feminist critiques of that research and emphasizing those studies which have focused on feminists in teaching.