- Title
- Exploring international female doctoral students' narratives through the lenses of intersectionality and feminist standpoint theory
- Creator
- Syed, Sabrina
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2022
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- International female doctoral students face multiple complexities in their academic learning events arising from language barriers, cultural differences and personal matters while negotiating everyday life in a foreign country. Nested within the epistemological positioning of feminist standpoint theory and intersectionality, this research explores the socio-cultural and academic experiences of thirteen international female doctoral students in the Australian tertiary education system. Using a narrative inquiry approach, the analysis and discussion in this thesis draw on personal stories to open up a space to understand the complexity of participants' lives during their studies in Australia. The research objective is to present an exploration of the complexity of participants' experiences in Australia. It does through narratives providing a critical perspective to understand how multiple identities through social categories such as race, class, gender, nationality and ethnicity are interlaced to shape participants' learning and living experiences in Australia. This research enhances our critical understanding regarding the influences of participants' intersecting identities on their perceptions, thus defining their standpoint during and before their PhD. Moreover, the study points out how each participants’ circumstances, including socio-cultural, political and academic conditions, encouraged them to aspire to PhD studies. Gender (in)equality is an ongoing global and political matter affecting all girls and women across different geopolitical spaces. In contemporary societies across multiple cultures, it is common to see more men than women in dominant political and economic positions with power for decision-making. Critical discussions about gender inequality are not new within the tertiary education sector. Women's voices are often minimised across faculty, and student populations within the tertiary sector, and international female students' voices are even more marginalised. One of the key barriers for international students' voices to be heard is related to socio-cultural differences, which has created a unique parallel community for international students that is further excluded from Australia's proclaimed multicultural society. In this type of small but specific community, due to its complex politics of differences, international female doctoral students deal with challenges in their lifeworlds that they need to negotiate and navigate during their learning and living in Australia. Finally, the research aims to aid educators in acknowledging or even taking into consideration PhD candidates' multiple identities and complex lives to understand participants' life events from their standpoints.
- Subject
- international PhD student; doctoral; gender; intersectionality; narrative inquiry
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1440215
- Identifier
- uon:41105
- Rights
- Copyright 2022 Sabrina Syed
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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| Thumbnail | File | Description | Size | Format | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT01 | Thesis | 1 MB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download | ||
| View Details Download | ATTACHMENT02 | Abstract | 231 KB | Adobe Acrobat PDF | View Details Download |