Program Overview

Overview of the Doctor of Philosophy in Educational Studies (PhD)

The PhD in Educational Studies is a research-oriented doctoral program for students interested in any of the study areas offered in the department, such as adult and community education and social movements; citizenship and human rights; continuing professional education; cultural politics, critical multiculturalism and feminist studies; educational leadership and policy; epistemology (the study of knowledge and knowing), ethics, and political philosophy; equity in education (on the axes of race, disability, gender, class, and sexuality); Indigenous education; international and comparative education; media, popular culture and representation or youth and children in schools, families, and communities.

Program Structure

Students are required to take two first-year doctoral seminars and a second-year doctoral seminar. All other courses in a student's program are determined in consultation with faculty. Students in the PhD program typically devote two years to coursework, and two to four years to developing and carrying out a research project designed to make an original contribution to knowledge in the study area.

Program Details

• Faculty: Faculty of Education
• Academic Unit: Department of Educational Studies
• Specialization: Educational Studies
• Mode of delivery: In person at UBC Vancouver
• Program Components: Dissertation
• Tuition (First Year):
  • Domestic: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• Median Funding: 50% of students receive $37,238 or more funding per year in the first 4 years, before tuition and fees

Admission Information and Requirements

Minimum Academic Requirements

The Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies establishes the minimum admission requirements common to all applicants, usually a minimum overall average in the B+ range (76% at UBC). The graduate program that you are applying to may have additional requirements.

English Language Test

Applicants from a university outside Canada in which English is not the primary language of instruction must provide results of an English language proficiency examination as part of their application. Tests must have been taken within the last 24 months at the time of submission of your application.

Prior Degree, Course, and Other Requirements

Please review the specific requirements for applicants with credentials from institutions in Canada or the United States, and international countries other than the United States.

Tuition and Financial Support

Tuition

• Application Fee:
  • Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat: $118.50
  • International: $168.25
• Tuition per year:
  • Canadian Citizen / Permanent Resident / Refugee / Diplomat: $5,626.02
  • International: $9,883.98
• International Tuition Award (ITA) per year (if eligible): $3,200.00

Financial Support

All full-time students in UBC-Vancouver PhD programs will be provided with a funding package of at least $24,000 for each of the first four years of their PhD from September 2024. The funding package may consist of any combination of internal or external awards, teaching-related work, research assistantships, and graduate academic assistantships.

Career Outcomes

74 students graduated between 2005 and 2013: 3 graduates are seeking employment; 1 is in a non-salaried situation; for 4 we have no data. For the remaining 66 graduates:

• RI (Research-Intensive) Faculty: typically tenure-track faculty positions
• TI (Teaching-Intensive) Faculty: typically full-time faculty positions in colleges or in institutions not granting PhDs, and teaching faculty at PhD-granting institutions
• Term Faculty: faculty in term appointments

Enrolment, Duration, and Other Statistics

• Enrolment Data:
  • Applications: 58 (2023), 77 (2022), 80 (2021), 65 (2020), 83 (2019)
  • Offers: 10 (2023), 7 (2022), 7 (2021), 10 (2020), 8 (2019)
  • New Enrolment: 5 (2023), 7 (2022), 3 (2021), 5 (2020), 5 (2019)
  • Total Enrolment: 48 (2023), 51 (2022), 54 (2021), 58 (2020), 59 (2019)
• Completion Rates and Times:
  • Graduation rate: 85% based on 34 students admitted between 2011-2014
  • Minimum time to completion: 5.12 years
  • Maximum time to completion: 11.62 years
  • Average time to completion: 7.51 years

Research Supervisors

Students in research-based programs usually require a faculty member to function as their thesis supervisor. Please follow the instructions provided by each program whether applicants should contact faculty members.

Sample Thesis Submissions

• The future folk: reconceptualizations and meditations on culture, psyche, and revolt
• Teachers’ material, moral and legal conditions on World Teachers’ Day: a networked movement of Egyptian teachers on Facebook
• Culturally attuned Indigenous graduate mentorship
• Identity and power: Iranian women’s negotiations of belonging in a transnational context
• The British Empire's ruins in higher education
• The experience of error in adult language learning
• School leadership practices for a democratic way of life: a temporally-multiple case study of one Canadian public high school
• Inter
  ationalization of higher education: the case of academic mobility and knowledge generation at Qatar University
• Coherence, consistency, contradiction: portraits of postsecondary educators seeking ecological integrity
• Indigenizing: one heart at a time

Related Programs

• Master of Arts in Educational Studies (MA)
• Master of Education in Educational Studies (MEd)
• Doctor of Education in Educational Leadership and Policy (EdD)
• Graduate Certificate in Adult Learning and Education (GCALE)
• Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GCHIED)

Further Information

• Specialization: Educational Studies
• UBC Calendar: graduate-and-postdoctoral-studies/degree-programs/educational-studies
• Program Website: Not provided
• Faculty: Faculty of Education
• Academic Unit: Department of Educational Studies
• Program Identifier: VGDPHD-G4
• Classification: Social sciences » Education » Specialized studies in education