Of heads and hearts: Women in doctoral education at a Canadian University

The doctoral degree represents an important academic achievement, affording its holder great potential to contribute to knowledge development and social and economic change. The challenge of undertaking doctoral study, however, can obscure the ultimate benefits of possessing a PhD. For women in doctoral programs, the stresses associated with advanced education can be compounded in distinctive ways. Traditional gender roles and gendered organizational hierarchies combine to make doctoral education an inherently different process for men and women. This exploratory qualitative study investigates the unique perspectives of female, Canadian PhD students in the arts and humanities regarding their programs, research interests, supervisors, perceptions of interpersonal and organizational social support, and career plans, linking them to the literature on women in academic organizations.