PRESENTING SUPERB RESEARCH THAT ADVANCES THE FIELD OF EDUCATION
Doctoral Studies as Educational Industrial Complex
Untangling the PhD/EdD Octopus
- Publisher
Myers Education Press - ISBN 9781975505363
- Language English
- Pages 275 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
- Request Exam Copy
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- Publisher
Myers Education Press - ISBN 9781975505387
- Language English
- Pages 275 pp.
- Size 6" x 9"
- Request E-Exam Copy
More than a century after William James published his provocative critique The PhD Octopus in 1903, his warnings about the corrupting entanglements between institutions and graduate students remain strikingly relevant. Doctoral Studies as Educational Industrial Complex revisits James’ concerns through a contemporary lens, offering a critical examination of doctoral education in the field of education in what feels like perennial crisis. Throughout the volume, contributors grapple with the tensions James identified: the obsession with credentials over genuine intellectual work, the “tyrannical machine” of institutional demands, and the misalignment between doctoral preparation and actual career paths. These tensions are particularly acute in practitioner-oriented EdD programs designed to produce scholar-practitioners who often remain in their local communities rather than entering the academy. Yet research-oriented PhD programs face their own crisis, as they continue to prepare scholars for a tenure-track job market that has dramatically contracted. With only 32% of faculty holding tenured or tenure-track positions in 2023—down from 53% in 1987—the traditional pathway to academic careers has fundamentally eroded. The book speaks to multiple audiences: faculty who supervise doctoral students and seek to understand the challenges they face; doctoral students navigating alternative program formats and uncertain career prospects; administrators responsible for program design and accreditation; and scholars interested in the future of higher education and professional preparation. By centering faculty expertise and critical analysis rather than external market demands, this volume offers a necessary counter-narrative to prevailing trends in doctoral education reform. Ultimately, this book argues for a reconsideration of what doctoral education should accomplish and for whom, grounding these questions in both historical perspective and contemporary realities.
Acknowledgments
Foreword
“Applying the Pot Roast Principle”
Leonard Cassuto
Introductory Matters
The Octopus in Doctoral Education
Jessica Heybach and Peter Renn
The PhD Octopus
William James (reprinting 1903)
Section I: Why is There Not Just One Doctorate in Education?
Chapter 1:
A Century of Discourse: The EdD and PhD in Education
Grace Blum
Chapter 2:
Origins of the Education Doctorate in the United States
Leonard Waks
Chapter 3:
The Education Doctorates Converge: The Two Doctorate Problem
Leonard Waks
Section II: What Kind of Knowledge and Identities are Created by the Doctorate in Education?
Chapter 4:
Academic Research and the Research Doctorate
Leonard Waks
Chapter 5:
“Members Alien in Kind:” On The Spectral Chimera of the Hyphenated Scholar
Gabriel Keehn
Chapter 6:
Continuous Decline: The Limits of Practitioner Research as Reflected in EdD Student Topic Selection
Faith Wilson
Section III: What Institutional Contexts And Environments Challenge the Doctorate in Education?
Chapter 7:
From Distress to Hope: Dissertation Chairs Speak
Alison Happel-Parkins, Jessica Heybach, Pamela Konkol, John Lupinacci, Austin Pickup, Peter Renn
Chapter 8:
The EdD Dissertation Chair Revisited: Cultivating Study Within the Terror of Uncertainty
Austin Pickup
Chapter 9:
EdTech and the EdD Octopus: Critically Exploring the Role of Technology in the Education Doctorate
Morgan Anderson
Chapter 10:
AI and the Outsourcing of “Becoming”
Jeremy Delamarter
Concluding Thoughts
Chapter 11
Doctoral Futures: Artificial Intelligence and the Crisis of Intellectual Formation
Jessica Heybach
Author and Chapter Details
Author Biographies
Index
NOTE: Table of Contents subject to change up until publication date.
Jessica A. Heybach
Jessica Heybach is Professor of Educational Leadership in the Department of Educational Leadership, Research, and Technology at Western Michigan University. She is currently serving as Associate Dean of Research and Graduate Studies in the College of Education and Human Development. Her scholarly interests center on social foundations of education, democratic education, philosophy of education, Deweyan aesthetics, and critical leadership studies. Her work is committed to bridging the gap between theory and practice, and advocates for the development of more democratic forms of leadership, school policy, and practice. She has published in such journals as the Critical Questions in Education, Education and Culture, Education Policy Analysis Archives, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Educational Studies, Health Education Journal, Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Education, and Philosophical Studies in Education. She co-edited Dystopia and Education: Insights into Theory, Praxis, and Policy with Eric C. Sheffield (2013, AESA Critics Choice Award Winner), and Making Sense of Race in Education: Practices for Change in Difficult Times with Sheron Fraser-Burgess (2021, SPE Book Award, 2021 AESA Critics Choice Award). She co-edited the Cambridge Handbook on Ethics and Education (2024) with Sheron Fraser-Burgess and Dini Metro-Roland. She is the President-Elect of the John Dewey Society, Program Chair of the Dewey Studies SIG of the American Educational Research Association, past-president of the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society, and the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society.
Peter Renn
After two decades working with teacher education students, Pete Renn, EdD recently returned to the K-12 world as a secondary school principal. Along with 30+ years as an educator, he has extensive experience developing international partnerships around the world. He resides in Seattle with his spouse, Lisa, their two dogs, and takes every opportunity to kayak in Puget Sound.