In this paper, the author revisits empirical material generated in her PhD research in light of (a) her recent experiences and conversations as course coordinator of the supervision course at the centre of the Special Issue, and (b) current supervision practice. Part of her PhD research included examination of her own supervisors’ pedagogical praxis while they were supervising her doctorate. This examination occurred, rather uniquely, in dialogue with her supervisors in supervision meetings and interviews, and also through analysis of reflective notes made about her experiences of being supervised during the PhD. At the end of the paper, the author relates the findings of her retrospective analysis to her own being, becoming, and praxis as a supervisor and academic developer involved with the professional learning of supervisors. The discussion builds on current doctoral education and higher education praxis literature by highlighting, among other things, the role of supervision experiences—as both supervisor and supervisee—in supervisor becoming, and how, supervision practice as praxis can be both enacted and nurtured within a supervision team.

This chapter discusses diverse views of worlds worth living in, as described by different groups of students, young people, and adults. It also high-lights how the project of research and writing that produced this volume is an example of critical praxis: history making action directed towards realising the good for humankind. Perhaps, in this, it is an example of what Anna Stetsenko calls a ‘transformative activist stance’. In researching and articulating views of worlds worth living in, the contributors to the volume, and the participants with whom they spoke, not only began to imagine worlds worth living in, they also began to realise them. 

This special issue brings together a unique collection of papers on doctoral supervision, including work from researchers both outside the pedagogy discipline as well as those centred within it. The contributions include research on factors that contribute to supervisor stress, professional learning programs for supervisors, advising ancestry, gender and power in supervision, and the formation of supervisors more generally.

This open access book is the first of a two-volume series focusing on how people are being enabled or constrained to live well in today’s world, and how to bring into reality a world worth living in for all. The chapters offer unique narratives drawing on the perspectives of diverse groups such as: asylum-seeking and refugee youth in Australia, Finland, Norway and Scotland; young climate activists in Finland; Australian Aboriginal students, parents and community members; families of children who tube feed in Australia; and international research students in Sweden. The chapters reveal not just that different groups have different ideas about a world worth living in, but also show that, through their collaborative research initiative, the authors and their research participants were bringing worlds like these into being. The volume extends an invitation to readers and researchers in education and the social sciences to consider ways to foster education that realises transformed selves and transformed worlds: the good for each person, the good for humankind, and the good for the community of life on the planet. The book also includes theoretical chapters providing the background and rationale behind the notion of education as initiating people into ‘living well in a world worth living in'. An introductory chapter discusses the origins of the concept and the phrase. 

Editorial

In the opening line of the first issue of JPHE in 2019, the editorial team posed the following pertinent and critically reflective question: ‘Does the higher education research community really need another research journal?’ (The Editorial Team, 2019, p. 1). In their editorial, they provide a well-argued case for answering this question in the affirmative. The journal’s policy statement also makes a good case as to why JPHE is distinctive defining education as ‘a moral and political activity’ and emphasising the way in which ‘the journal is committed to research aimed at the transformation of existing practices and conditions in higher education.’ (JPHE, 2022, para. 1).

The aim of this chapter is to explore the relationship between professional education, embodiment, and neoliberalism, focussing primarily on the practices of professional educators. The chapter draws on the theory of practice architectures to pose questions about how practices, and the bodies that make those practices possible, are being enabled, constrained, and transformed by neoliberalising forces that have pervaded many aspects of contemporary societies, including sites of professional education and the everyday lives of professional educators. Are bodies, through practices, becoming both “neoliberalised” and “neoliberalising”? What does/could this look like/feel like? What might this mean for the future of professional education? The chapter highlights the sense in which, in this neoliberal age, professional educators’ bodies are increasingly experiencing, performing, and perpetuating neoliberal ideals, and why promoting a sensitivity to this, and resistance, is so important. For illustrative purposes, the chapter draws on some lived experiences of professional educators gleaned from literature and the author’s own research and history as a teacher educator.