An “Industrial Ph.D.”: Oxymoron, or the Salvation of Higher Education?
The University of Reggio Emilia and Modena in Northern Italy has announced an ‘industrial Ph.D.” in “Reggio Childhood Studies” and has admitted an initial cohort of ten students. Over the course of three years, the doctoral candidates will take courses, decide on a thesis topic, carry out the necessary library and/or empirical research, and write a thesis, which, if accepted, will confer on them a Ph.D.
To many individuals familiar with traditional doctoral education, this program sounds weird if not oxymoronic. Most doctoral programs take more than three years; most are not centered around a particular approach to childhood; and the phrase "industrial doctorate" is jarring, if not frankly, again, oxymoronic. The program has just been launched, and it is deliberately experimental—after three years, it may or may not be renewed. It is far too early to render a judgment on it. But the concept of a new kind of doctoral degree is well worth pondering.
First, some historical and personal background. Since the early 1980s, I have been travelling regularly to Reggio Emilia (RE), a moderately sized city in Emilia Romagna, an affluent part of northern Italy. RE is extremely well known around the world among educators of early childhood. Its approach to pedagogy, inspired by Loris Malaguzzi (1920-1994) and carried forward by an incredible band of teachers (including in their ranks “pedagogistas” and “atelieristas”), has been an inspiration to most scholars and practitioners in the field, earning Reggio a reputation as fabled as that attributed to Montessori or Waldorf Schools. Moreover, I know that, for many years, the educators in RE have wanted to institute a formal course of study at the nearby university. The launching of a doctoral program signals the success of the “Reggio approach”—analogous, say, to an educational program in an American University inspired by the ideas and practices associated with John Dewey.
We can say, then, that there is an intellectual pedigree of merit attached to the new doctoral program—particularly if the phrase “RE” does not entail indoctrination into a specific catechism but rather a general and adaptable set of ideas and practices that draw inspiration from the important educational innovations developed, over the last six decades, by Malaguzzi and his proteges.
But what of the label "industrial Ph.D."? To this American ear, the term "industrial" has a clearly commercial signal more suited to a 19th or early 20th century employment office in the Steel or Coal Belt than to a cloistered institution of higher learning. Hence, my unkind application of the term "oxymoron." Also, "industrial" implies that a model can readily be transplanted—like a factory for producing Fiats or Frigidaires—while decades of experience indicate that one cannot readily transplant an educational approach to an alien communal soil.
But I have come to understand that "industrial" can have a more neutral connotation—akin to sector of the economy rather than to large-scale machinery—and one could as well say "the health industry," "the educational industry," or "the communication industry"—all of which certainly confer doctorates in their respective faculties.
It’s appropriate to take a step back and to consider, if briefly, the origins and growth of doctoral programs. In 19th century Germany, various scientific and humanistic disciplines began to train future scholars; and, if those student scholars produced credible research or writing, they were awarded one or another kind of higher degree—including the prestigious “habilitation.”
As this approach traveled to other countries, the doctoral degree became a precious commodity—one that was supervised and controlled carefully by scholars in the respective disciplines. I can vouch for this characterization first hand. As a college student and doctoral student, I chose a deliberately interdisciplinary field known as Social Relations. Courses were available in “Soc Rel,” but my doctoral sheepskin bears the name “Social Psychology” because “Soc Rel” was not considered a bona fide discipline. Then, as a professor at a school of education, I watched for three decades as doctoral students—often quite brilliant—were denied a Ph.D. (a “genuine” doctoral degree) and were given the second rank diploma, an Ed.D (doctoral degree in education). Only after decades of struggle was the Harvard Graduate School of Education allowed in 2013 to award a Ph.D.—while the power is still retained by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the traditional bestower of "real" doctorates.
But we are living in the 21st century and not in the 19th century. There is less and less tolerance for "pure scholarship" in the U.S. and, as I learned recently in RE, in Italy as well. To be sure, if one chooses to study a STEM topic—science, engineering, mathematics—then it’s OK to pursue a doctorate. After all, you are likely to get a well-paying job, thereby justifying the investment by you, your family, and/or the taxpayer. But you want to study a discipline in the humanities (e.g., history, philosophy, linguistics, the arts) or a softer social science (e.g., sociology, anthropology), you are likely to encounter resistance, a declining set of choices, and all too often sneers from family, friends, and fellow taxpayers.
Meanwhile, even as traditional humanistic disciplines are on the defensive and on the decline, those courses of study that lead to a job, and especially to a well-paying job, are more likely to gain support. There are doctorates in law, business, public health, communication, social work, nursing, and even education. And as I learned in Italy, doctorates in "industry" are now being underwritten in part by the industries themselves—with my own ears, I heard that one will be able to receive a doctorate in "bel canto" singing, presumably an entry ticket to a singing role at La Scala, the fabled opera house in Milan.
To someone who, while interdisciplinary himself, has a love of the classical disciplines, this thinning of the traditional doctorate and the fattening of a job-related doctorate is lamentable. I do not welcome a slew of doctorates resembling the yellow pages of an old-fashioned telephone book (advertising, aeronautics, agriculture, astronomy, aviation… zoology).
Yet happier scenarios are also possible. Perhaps more practically-oriented doctorates will help to preserve the universities. Perhaps, as happened in traditional Germany universities, there will be two levels of doctorate—the lower hanging doctorate and the more rigorous and prestigious "habilitation." And perhaps programs like the Ph.D. in Reggio Childhood Education will succeed in combining the best of both worlds and, in the process, set a new and estimable model for education in our time.
© 2019 Howard Gardner