From fledgling manoeuvres methodological confidence: Conversations between a doctoral student and supervisor on ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to explore the everyday worlds of children and families

This chapter discusses the methodological journey, from the candi­date's first thinking about undertaking a doctorate to enrolling, con­sidering, and undertaking data collection and analysis, and to writing a thesis. In addition to exploring some milestone events of a doctor­ate, the chapter highlights aspects of undertaking a doctorate that are rarely found in texts about undertaking postgraduate studies, that is, the methodological manoeuvres. Personal, professional, and academic aspects are integral to a successful completion of a doctorate, but rarely shared by a candidate and her supervisor. Using second stories (Sacks, 1995), the journey explored in this chapter includes the sto­ries of the fledgling researcher and her supervisor. Features of second story include links back to matters discussed in the first story, demon­strations of understanding of the first story, the proffering of parallel experiences, and new perspectives that were invited by the first story (Arminen, 2004; Sacks, 1995).