Doctoral Supervision as a Professional Practice?

Contemporary trends in science policy and social theorychallenge the concept of doctoral supervision as ‘professionalpractice’. The concept compares supervision with the workof other professionals regarding a specific working alliance.Supervisors and novices engage in a relationship to createand solve an intellectual crisis. The dynamics of the crisis,paradoxes of the situation and technical uncertainties ofnon-standardised problem solving are typical features ofall professional practices. However, worldwide trends indoctoral education such as the improvement of completionrates, the creation of formal organisations and programsas well as the overall ‘projectification’ of the Ph.D. processtend to ignore the unpredictability of doctoral research andsupervision. In consequence, social theory discusses trendstowards increasing formal control, disciplinary differentiationand particularities in doctoral supervision as an ongoing ‘deprofessionalisation’of a shared professional practice. To defendand specify the concept of professional practice for doctoralsupervision, I draw on a comparative study of supervisionpractices in two disciplinary fields (physics and social sciences)and different organisational contexts in the German academicsystem. I argue that the creation of independent researchersand new knowledge constitute a specific interaction betweensupervisors and novices beyond disciplinary and organisationaldifferences. Autonomy and dependence, self-learning andguidance, production and solution of intellectual crisis andconflicting role patterns create an inherent tension in supervisionpractice that cannot be resolved by formal structures and istherefore best described as professional practice.