Graduate Research Supervision in the Developing World: Policies, Pedagogies, and Practices

Recognising that graduate supervisory practice is not an abstracted academic pursuit, but an activity that is subjectively bounded by content and context, impacted by the experiences and beliefs of supervisee and supervisor, this text explores the unique dynamics of graduate supervision in the Global South, as perceived and experienced by students and academics within those same contexts.

Bringing together contributions which reflect a rich diversity of perspectives on supervisory practices at regional universities in the Caribbean and South Pacific, Graduate Research Supervision in the Developing World explores how supervisors navigate unscripted supervisory terrain; contextualise supervisory best practices; establish roles and relationships, and work to understand supervisees’ needs. By highlighting the effect on graduate supervision of complex sociocultural interplay and the relationship between learning environments and student success, contributors look to locate best practices through analyses of stories of success and failure. As the contributors demonstrate, there is a need to restructure the standardised operation of graduate supervision across diverse faculties.

This text will be of great interest to graduate supervisors and their supervisees as well as scholars in the fields of continuing professional development and higher education, in international and comparative education and Sociology of Education.

Erik Blair is Senior Lecturer in Higher Education at the University of West London, UK.

Danielle Watson is Senior Lecturer at the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

Shikha Raturi is an academic in School of Education, University of the South Pacific, Fiji.