Spiral Processes of Becoming: Women's Experiences Within the Context of Doctoral Education

Stress management strategies for women doctoral students

When women return to school part-time for the doctorate while continuing to work full-time, they face many changes in their lives. Adding the role of doctoral student to existing roles at work and home can be challenging for women. By using stress-reducing strategies aimed at managing role changes, time pressures, and education issues, women can successfully integrate the student role into their daily lives.

Halfway Between Receiving and Giving: A Relational Analysis of Doctorate-Prepared Nurse–Scholars' First 5 Years After Graduation

The longitudinal, phenomenological study described in this article is unique in exploring doctorally prepared nurses' lives during their first 5 years after graduation. Despite individual differences, there was a definite pattern in the way the 16 female participants internalized a doctoral identity. During the first year, the women asked themselves, "How big do I want my world to be?" In the second year, they were overwhelmed by trying to prove themselves because they equated doctoral identity with conducting research and scholarship. During the third year, they prioritized gradually focusing and determining the direction of their professional endeavors. In the fourth year, they "spent a lot of time creating my piece of the world." By the fifth year, they valued their accomplishments, "This is my world and I am proud of it." In between receiving and giving, most participants developed a network of colleagues who mentored them as scholars. Given that relationship and scholarly identity are linked in the nursing literature, this relational feminist analysis suggests the need for doctoral nurse educators and students to replace the single mentor-mentee model with a collegial one that allows them to mentor one another as scholars during and after doctoral studies.

An Education in Racism

Lack of diversity in nursing doctoral programs compromises the quality of doctoral education and perpetuates the shortage of faculty of color in nursing schools. To help understand the contexts that contribute to this lack of diversity, this study examined the experiences of 9 women of color in nursing doctoral programs. The aim of the study was to describe the experiences, challenges, and understandings of women of color in nursing doctoral programs. Analysis of interview data revealed that racism was a pervasive and harmful influence on participants and that this influence was largely invisible to Euro-American faculty and students. These findings highlight the need for faculty and students to critically reflect on their own racism as an important first step in challenging the status quo of racism in nursing education. "When I dare to be powerful--to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid." - Audre Lorde (cited in Humbolt State University, n.d.).

Doctoral women as passionate scholars: an exploratory inquiry of passionate dissertation scholarship

Advancement in knowledge development comes from novel perspectives and new visions, not from maintaining the status quo. Doctoral programs are mandated to develop nurse scholar-researchers who contribute to the discipline's body of knowledge. Although it stands to reason that doctoral students who are passionate about their dissertation research are more likely to make innovative contributions, there is little written about passionate scholarship in the nursing literature. This article describes an exploratory inquiry involving two focus groups of self-described passionate dissertation scholars. Underlining the passion, participants called passionate scholarship exciting and risky, personally meaningful and socially relevant life's work.