‘You Don't Discuss These Things With Your Superior’: Surfacing Dependence Taboos in Doctoral Education Through Near-Peer Mentoring

Abstract

Doctoral education increasingly emphasises both independence and supportive supervision, creating contradictory expectations for candidates. This study examines dependence taboos—a sense that seeking help risks undermining legitimacy as a doctoral researcher. Through affective-discursive analysis of interviews with doctoral researchers who participated in a near-peer mentoring programme at an Australian university, we explore how candidates navigate conflicting demands to be both autonomous and supported. Participants described difficulty expressing uncertainty in supervisory relationships, whilst finding such discussions more acceptable with near-peer mentors. The mentoring programme's focu..