Culture and Doctoral Advising Practices: Formality Versus Informality in Germany and Israel

• In Event: 64.089 - Sheraton Roundtable 12 - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 64.089-2 - International Perspectives on Graduate and Doctoral Education

Abstract

The present study seeks to assess the extent to which cultural codes are associated with doctoral advising practices in Germany and Israel. The study relied on interviews with 125 Israeli scientists who had collaborative projects with German colleagues (supplanted by a small sample of German partners). By combining qualitative with quantitative methodologies the study shows that doctoral advising in the two countries is structured by utterly different cultural codes. German advising practices are structured by formal and hierarchical cultural predispositions. In contrast, informality and symmetry structure professor-student relations in Israel. Those contrasting cultural syndromes suggest that national cultural predispositions pervade advising practices and set German and Israeli science on distinct trajectories.

Author

• Gad Yair, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem