Abstract
The demand for developing profound critical thinking in doctoral education is a serious concern since today’s doctoral students are the academics and societal leaders of tomorrow. Thus they need to be well prepared for handling the rapid changes of academia, and society at large, in deliberate, transformative, and responsible ways. Such a concern extends beyond the traditional understanding of critical thinking in terms of critical reasoning. It also involves critical self-reflection and critical action (Barnett 1997). Underpinned by a range of scholars who argue for a close relationship between critical and creative thinking (Baer and Kaufman 2006), I shall in this chapter argue that criticality of this all-embracing kind involves an ample amount of creativity.
One of the supervisors said: “Yes, we’re going to reshape you here.” It seems as if that is what they do in doctoral education, they make us into researchers … I mean, make us think in another way. And you could say that they’ve succeeded with that in my case: I mean with the critical thinking. What you learn is that you need to be critical of everything—everything you read. And I suppose that’s the point with these seminars; it has to be, that you discuss the texts and critically reflect upon them. (Interview with doctoral student in pedagogical work, Pe1)
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© 2015 Martin Davies and Ronald Barnett
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Brodin, E.M. (2015). Conditions for Criticality in Doctoral Education: A Creative Concern. In: Davies, M., Barnett, R. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Critical Thinking in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137378057_17
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