An Exploration of Darkness within Doctoral Education

Abstract

In doctoral education, the formal structures include the Graduate School system, PhD courses, and supervision contracts, etc. Doctoral education also takes place on informal and tacit levels, where doctoral students learn about the institutional regulations, the research field, academic craftsmanship, and research design by observing how their supervisors talk, act, and handle issues in the professional community. However, the formal-informal divide is not adequate if we want to understand the sprawling, mongrel, and diverse forms of student engagement, coping, and learning strategies within doctoral education today. By drawing on the empirical studies of cross-level institutional voices, as well as international studies into similar grey areas of student learning in doctoral education, this chapter argues that learning spaces of educational ‘darkness' hold unrecognised potential for enhancing learning experiences, harnessing professional competences, and enriching the depth of research in the PhD life that implies significant contributions to future doctoral education development.