Abstract
This study focused on doctoral supervisors, their students, and the pedagogies they adopt in a South African context. In reviewing the literature, the study paid attention to the meaning associated with the term supervision and how it varies with time. This was to unpack the models and approaches doctoral supervisors adopt as they supervise doctoral students. A brief look at global and institutional doctoral supervision does not privilege contextual issues about doctoral supervision. Using a qualitative approach anchored in post-modern epistemologies, the study explored how PhD supervisors and their students are positioned respectively to undertake and undergo doctoral supervision in the South African context. Globally, doctoral supervision takes the German model where a supervisor in a discipline deals with a PhD student whose topic strictly falls within his/her discipline. In some cases, in English speaking countries, supervisors do take on topics that go beyond their own discipline. In South African studies, the focus has been on doctoral students and the role of supervisors in the cohort model of supervision (Govender & Dhunpath, 2011; Samuel & Vithal, 2011; ASSAF, 2010; Backhouse, 2009; Dietz, Dietz, Jansen, & Wadee, 2006). ..
Ph.D. (Curriculum Studies)