ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the research context and process, and explains Basil Bernstein concepts. It describes several ‘ideal types’ of PhD work and utilizes the Bernsteinian concepts to illuminate the roles of doctoral students. The chapter also explains one of the analogies frequently used by supervisors to describe the relationship between doctoral students and supervisors: that of marriage. However just as social science research on marriage has revealed that there are differences in ways that marriages can function, so too there are differences in supervisory patterns. The main channel for government money into ‘pure’, or ‘blue skies’ social science research in the UK, the Social Science Research Council had been created by Harold Wilson a Labour Prime Minister in the 1960s. The Economic and Social Research Councilgraduate training is run by the Training Board, and three years after the policy changes, they funded a research programme.
