To publish or to research? To reproduce or to teach? Reflections on the experiences of women doctoral candidates in accounting

Abstract

If, on the one hand, graduate programs in accounting in Brazil maintain a focus on publication, to the detriment of teaching, on the other hand, it is crucial that teaching be professionally practiced, which requires specific training. The objective of this research was to problematize the teaching training, through the analysis of the experiences of 13 women doctoral candidates in graduate accounting programs in Brazil. In the country, educational policies are closely linked to government decisions, notably by the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES), which, in turn, influences the teaching-learning setting. The methodological and epistemological choices were feminist constructionism and post-structuralism, justified by spotlighting women's experiences, considering their multiplicities in the doctoral trajectory and how they influence and are influenced by the people around them, by the lived processes, senses and meanings they attribute to their trajectories. As results, we found few pedagogical training actions for the professional development of teaching, limited to the eventual offer of a course and the “mysterious” teaching internship. The emphasis on publications implies that the process of planning and developing a research project takes a back seat, sometimes resulting in not very relevant research, with an emphasis on quantitative methods and no room for daring.