Figured Worlds: A Comparative Analysis of International Doctoral Students? Experiences in the U.S. Academic Setting

Over the past decade, due to globalization and expansion of higher education institutions worldwide, the U.S. has positioned itself as the top choice for students pursuing university degrees abroad, with a record of 1,078,822 international students in 2016-2017 (Institute of International Education, 2017). Nonetheless, a 5.5% decline in new international graduate student enrollment was reported for fall 2017 (National Science Foundation, 2018), a trend that might have been influenced by changes in the current political climate. Particular attention should be given to international doctoral students because they make significant contributions to U.S. campuses, communities, and research enterprises. Thus, education stakeholders should attempt to understand these students? experiences in the socially and culturally constructed, or ?figured world,? of academia (Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner, & Cain, 1998). The figured world of advising, considered as a branch of the figured world of academia, is explored in this qualitative study informed by hermeneutic phenomenology. More specifically, this study examines how international doctoral students experience relationships with their advisors across disciplines. Twenty-five international doctoral students at a Midwestern university participated in semi-structured, in-depth interviews. Out of this sample, nineteen students also participated in four heterogeneous focus groups and twenty-three shared photographs that best represented their experiences as international doctoral students. Data analysis was a constant process of interpretation and meaning-making. The findings were focused around three pillars: student motivation to pursue a doctoral degree in the U.S., advisor-advisee relationship, and student navigation of the advisor-advisee relationship across disciplines. The findings revealed that advising is considered by international doctoral students as an intercultural and inter-educational experience. Under this generic umbrella, five themes emerged: advising as mentorship, advising as support, and advising as caring - considered as novel approaches to advising that celebrates cultural diversity; the other two categories - advising as employment and advising as a dysfunctional relationship - are presented as epic advising approaches that emphasize more hierarchical relationships. This study proposes a model of the figured world of advising that draws on Mikhail Bakhtin?s (1981) notions of ?novel? and ?epic? as two opposing genres. Nonetheless, collision of the advisor?s different approaches is possible and positive.Graduate School Dissertation Fellowshi