PhD reform requires cultural understanding

By Anne J MacLachlan. Despite different forms of organisation and development, doctoral education in Germany and the United States share a goal of socialising students into an academic discipline, and training them to advance knowledge through research conducted in the analytic form of that discipline and to master its specific concepts and language.
In short, they teach students to acquire the characteristics of a particular 'academic tribe' - to simplify a complex process analysed by Tony Becher and Paul Trowler in their 2001 book Academic Tribes and Territories. Read more...