The doctoral gaze: Foreign PhD students’ internal and external academic discourse socialization
Abstract This article examines the internal and external academic discourse socialization of seven Chinese PhD students at a large Canadian university. Through the use of interviews, participant-generated written narratives, and discussion of written feedback, this longitudinal multiple case study uncovered multiple and complex factors facilitating students’ socialization into local practices, discourses, and communities during their doctoral study. This article highlights the disciplinary role of internal and external socialization in mediating behaviours, affective stances, and (in)action, a process referred to as the doctoral gaze, conceptually drawn from Foucault's (1995) notion of panopticism. Students’ self- and other-mediated and directed forms of socialization comprised a recursive process where they learned to do being PhD students through the use of internal and external sources and resources. Their relative abilities to become active agents in the process, and effectively self- and other-socialize into practices, behaviours, and positionalities conducive to success, were key aspects in the broader socialization process.