Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives
Research on doctoral supervision in the field of Intercultural Communication has traditionally been applied to cross-cultural comparison, especially across national systems and cultural boundaries. However, recent years have witnessed that such comparison is being challenged and re-analysed in light...
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| Format: | Proceeding Paper |
| Language: | English English |
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Global Council for Anthropological Linguistics (GLOCAL)
2020
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| Online Access: | http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/1/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/7/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision_SCOPUS.pdf |
| _version_ | 1848788902842728448 |
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| author | Sahar, Rafidah Abdullah, Nur Nabilah |
| author_facet | Sahar, Rafidah Abdullah, Nur Nabilah |
| author_sort | Sahar, Rafidah |
| building | IIUM Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Research on doctoral supervision in the field of Intercultural Communication has traditionally been applied to cross-cultural comparison, especially across national systems and cultural boundaries. However, recent years have witnessed that such comparison is being challenged and re-analysed in light of potential risk of over generalisation and stereotyping in its observation. In this research, we consider the relevance of small cultures notion (Holliday, 1994, 1999) as an alternative approach to conceptualise doctoral supervisory practice as a dynamic on-going group process through which its members make sense of, in order to operate purposefully within particular contexts and shared behaviours. Narrative-based qualitative research was designed to generate and analyse the data. The participants were a purposive sample of six recently graduated PhD students at a Malaysian public university. One-on-one narrative interviews were conducted with the students to gather their supervisory narratives. Analyses of the students’ transcripts were completed using a holistic-content approach (Lieblich et al. 2008). Findings reveal a distinct set of behaviours and understanding that constitute the cultures of supervisory practice in the Malaysian university context. Through small cultures notion, this research proposes that cultures of PhD supervision can be best understood through an analysis of shared norms, behaviours and values between students and supervisors during supervisory practice. This research hopes that the move from a focus on large culture (i.e. Malaysianness per se) to a focus on the meaning-making process between students and supervisors from different backgrounds can avoid education practitioners, especially PhD supervisors, from making stereotyping and overgeneralising assumptions. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T17:48:13Z |
| format | Proceeding Paper |
| id | iium-80097 |
| institution | International Islamic University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| language | English English |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T17:48:13Z |
| publishDate | 2020 |
| publisher | Global Council for Anthropological Linguistics (GLOCAL) |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | iium-800972023-09-26T09:14:01Z http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/ Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives Sahar, Rafidah Abdullah, Nur Nabilah H Social Sciences (General) H61 Theory. Method Research on doctoral supervision in the field of Intercultural Communication has traditionally been applied to cross-cultural comparison, especially across national systems and cultural boundaries. However, recent years have witnessed that such comparison is being challenged and re-analysed in light of potential risk of over generalisation and stereotyping in its observation. In this research, we consider the relevance of small cultures notion (Holliday, 1994, 1999) as an alternative approach to conceptualise doctoral supervisory practice as a dynamic on-going group process through which its members make sense of, in order to operate purposefully within particular contexts and shared behaviours. Narrative-based qualitative research was designed to generate and analyse the data. The participants were a purposive sample of six recently graduated PhD students at a Malaysian public university. One-on-one narrative interviews were conducted with the students to gather their supervisory narratives. Analyses of the students’ transcripts were completed using a holistic-content approach (Lieblich et al. 2008). Findings reveal a distinct set of behaviours and understanding that constitute the cultures of supervisory practice in the Malaysian university context. Through small cultures notion, this research proposes that cultures of PhD supervision can be best understood through an analysis of shared norms, behaviours and values between students and supervisors during supervisory practice. This research hopes that the move from a focus on large culture (i.e. Malaysianness per se) to a focus on the meaning-making process between students and supervisors from different backgrounds can avoid education practitioners, especially PhD supervisors, from making stereotyping and overgeneralising assumptions. Global Council for Anthropological Linguistics (GLOCAL) 2020-02-05 Proceeding Paper PeerReviewed application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/1/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision.pdf application/pdf en http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/7/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision_SCOPUS.pdf Sahar, Rafidah and Abdullah, Nur Nabilah (2020) Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives. In: Conference on Asian Linguistic Anthropology (CALA 2020), Bintulu, Sarawak. https://glocal.soas.ac.uk/cala2020-181/ |
| spellingShingle | H Social Sciences (General) H61 Theory. Method Sahar, Rafidah Abdullah, Nur Nabilah Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title | Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title_full | Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title_fullStr | Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title_full_unstemmed | Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title_short | Conceptualising doctoral supervision in Malaysia as small cultures: PhD graduates’ perspectives |
| title_sort | conceptualising doctoral supervision in malaysia as small cultures: phd graduates’ perspectives |
| topic | H Social Sciences (General) H61 Theory. Method |
| url | http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/ http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/1/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision.pdf http://irep.iium.edu.my/80097/7/80097_Conceptualising%20doctoral%20supervision_SCOPUS.pdf |