backtoschooltanzania.wordpress.com  Blogs on my PhD journey  Peter Campling

‘Back to school’ has been one of the recurring themes of my life. After dropping out of my first university, the letter count from the ones that followed has somehow reached double figures – BA, MA, PGCE, NPQH – and the ‘back to school’ theme stretches beyond my iterative journey through academia, into much of my professional life. It was an inevitable focus when working in inner-London secondary schools (enrolment, attendance, drop-out prevention) as it was when I switched career paths to work for an INGO in the development education sector. I have learnt much from working in education in these varied contexts, often in challenging places with dedicated, inspirational colleagues. Now, after more than thirty years as an ‘educator’, I find myself going ‘back to school’ again, as a student.  

Last September, at the grand and liberating age of sixty, I started a Doctorate degree at university number six!  This time round feels different. Every day on campus is like a gift – of intellectual stimulation, of fascinating people and ideas, of time and space and of the expectation to ‘explore, dream and discover’ (Mark Twain) in real depth. As one of the elder members of class I am a little behind on contemporary academics, but I have a contribution to make from sharing my experiences as a school leader and programmes director. The opportunity at this stage of my career to reflect and to be challenged through an academic lens on what I have ‘learnt’ professionally, is a great privilege.

The beautiful and vibrant campus at the University of Sussex reminds me a bit of Glastonbury. Lots of (mostly young), diverse and eccentrically dressed people hang out together and whether hedonistic or studious, earnestly discuss the issues of the day. They then set off in herds to the next ‘stage’ – not for Fontaines DC or Shirley Bassey – but a lecture on neo-positivism, an overdue visit to the library, a seminar on contemporary feminism, a debate on Gaza at the student union, or (the highlight of my week) a PGR (post-grad researcher) support group, to check in on each other’s progress. It’s purposeful, it’s stretching my brain in new (or at least, long-forgotten) ways, it’s fun and its hard work. I’m loving it!

One of the best things about going ‘back to school’ is making new friends and you would struggle to find a more interesting, culturally diverse and stimulating group than my class mates. They include a refugee from Afghanistan who had to flee the Taliban after his father had been killed for supporting girls education; public sector workers from Kenya and Pakistan; an AI / disaster response specialist from Indonesia; migration scholars from Tanzania and Brazil and a Columbian academic researching teacher training. There are a few Brighton locals like me, including an educationalist researching climate change communication in schools and a probation officer researching the potential use of drama in the prison service.

We are a diverse bunch, but with a common passion for the research we are doing and the shared values of the world renowned Centre for International Education and other Development Studies faculties at Sussex. PhD research can be a lonely endeavour, occasionally dis-heartening and often very confusing! So, our PGR support group gathers regularly for a boost of collegiality and the chance to discuss the essentials of good research, or perhaps to grapple with the theoretical positions we are taking on ontology and epistemology (in my case, to work out the difference between the two) or to plan how we can get tickets for Brighton and Hove Albion’s next match, with the stadium sitting tantalisingly adjacent to the campus.

I last went ‘back to school’ in the early 90’s and perhaps not surprisingly,  quite a few things have changed. The most significant being that students are now paying for the ‘privilege’ of their education, rather than having it funded as a ‘right’. Are students more studious as a result? I think they probably are. They certainly appear to be more focused and career minded than we were back in the 80’s, but fortunately many seem to be just as passionate and active about the state of the world, whilst still managing to have a good time. 

Another big change, perhaps linked to the last point, is the huge focus that is now put on student’s wellbeing and mental health. I’m sure the uber-pro-active response by universities is to be welcomed (back in the day there was very little pastoral care, I don’t think anyone knew we were there!) but I must admit, the number of times we are being told by various Sussex worthies about the different types of ‘support’ available, is starting to drive me slightly insane… Talking of which, another major and somewhat  intimidating change is, of course, in the use of technology – for accessing module information, for assignments, for research, for recording and reviewing, for citing and referencing… its complicated… I have much to catch up on!

In terms of academia, there seems to be more critical scrutiny of our understanding of ‘knowledge’ itself – ‘what is it?’ – and of ‘meaning’ and ‘reality’ – ‘how do we identify or construct it?’ – and there is a greater focus on and demand for ‘reflexivity’ – ‘what is our own ‘position’ within the research and how does it shape what we do and find?’  Another weighty area that is new to me is ‘ethics’ and the explicit acknowledgement and fear that the pursuit of new knowledge can be damaging, both to those being researched and to the institutions responsible for it. The revered university’s ‘ethics panel’ must now scrutinise every aspect of our research in advance and strategies for getting ‘ethical approval’ are discussed in hushed and anxious terms across the PGR community.  

Practical ethical issues about research process and method over-lap with more general ethical issues about research theory and methodology, now questioned for the arrogant centrality prevalent throughout much of the history of ‘western’ social science. Putting it bluntly, few of the key thinkers – from Marx, Durkheim and Weber, through to recent times – lost much sleep over ‘post-colonial’ issues, or the north-south divide, or spent time worrying about economic dependency, or cultural hegemony.  They were guilty (to some extent I think we in the ‘west’ / ‘north’ all are) of a mistaken assumption of their own objectivity and of the universality of their theories.

This is now being redressed, led by progressive institutions such as the University of Sussex, with greater emphasis on ‘bottom up’, ‘critical’ research and theories and greater value given to indigenous knowledge and perspectives. The point for someone like me, engaging with serious research for the first time, is to recognise the past mistakes of social science by acknowledging my own bias and being explicit about my ‘positionality’ and the impact this may have on what I do.  The challenge is to produce research that is clear about its aims and methods and reflective in its perspective and understanding of the world  and collaborative in its development and implementation. Pretty straight forward really… my ‘back to school’ research needs be fully transparent in purpose and process and a co-production.  I’m off to Tanzania next week for a preliminary visit, to try to establish more precisely the research I’ll be doing – what, where, when, how, with whom… there’s much to do. I’ll keep you posted.