A thesis in the house: Family matters

Abstract

This paper is taken from a wider study of the experience of researching and writing a thesis. My interviews with 57 PhD graduates in Education included many accounts of how women and men managed their time and organised space. Where, and when, do thesis students read, think, and write? They spoke of struggles to 'make time', 'clear space,' or 'create a private place.' How did they reconcile the spatial, temporal, and relational demands '” simultaneous and competing '” of thesis research and domestic life? How did they handle the physical and emotional stresses of 'mapping' the thesis into their everyday lives? The interface between domestic life and intellectual production is an issue that has received little attention in educational scholarship. I draw on geographical, as well as educational, theorists to approach this question.