Prof. Dr. Martin Lücke, professor for historical education at the Free University of Berlin, talks about the challenges and opportunities for first-generation doctoral researchers. In this interview he discusses the world of German academia and shares his experience in navigating this world as a first generation academic.

Highlights

„… the idea of ​​college and university, as we think of it in Germany, well, structurally also has the mission of not allowing students from first-generation families to get as far as students from other families. That may be a blatant political statement, but I’ll leave it as it is for now.“

„While doctoral candidates from first generation families first of all really need to know that a supervisor is there for this purpose, that the supervisory relationship also has this function and that it is anything but a shame to actually do it. It is not about somehow maintaining pride or not having to talk about certain things.“

Prof. Dr. Martin Lücke, professor of historical education at Freie Universität Berlin and first generation academic

Note: This interview was conducted in German. The following translation is an automatic translation that was corrected for clarity.

Links

Find useful links on foundations that can support you during your doctorate and much more here.

Intro

Welcome to the DRS podcast, the podcast of the Dahlem Research School at Freie Universität Berlin. I’m Dr. Marlies Klamt and I’m looking forward to today’s episode, in which I have Martin Lücke as my guest. Martin Lücke is Professor of Historical Education at Freie Universität Berlin and I’m talking to him about the topic of First-Generation doctoral researchers. He is the first in his family to embark on an academic career and he shares his personal experiences and tells me how he made it into academia, even though no one in his family went to university. We talk about the particular challenges that doctoral candidates from non-academic families have to overcome and what universities, professors and doctoral candidates themselves can do to overcome these challenges.

A major topic is how more diversity and equal opportunities can be promoted in academia, and Professor Lücke will also provide practical tips for all first-generation doctoral candidates. The programme also covers exciting topics such as the imposter syndrome, self-doubt and the importance of networks and mentoring. If you’re interested, either because you’re a first-generation academic yourself or perhaps because you’re interested in diversity and equal opportunities in general, then be sure to stay tuned. It will be inspiring; it will be honest and full of helpful insights. Enjoy listening to the interview!

Interview

Welcome to the podcast, Professor Lücke. You are Professor of Historical Education at Freie Universität Berlin, where you are also a member of the Diversity Leadership Team and, and this will also form the core of our conversation today, you come from a non-academic family yourself. You also participate in multiple committees and are active in the promotion of science. Perhaps you would like to briefly introduce yourself and name the key aspects of your person that are most important to you.

With pleasure! The fact that I am where I am now, i.e. Professor of Historical Education at the FU Berlin, was by no means planned or part of any major strategic considerations. After graduating from high school, which is perhaps almost characteristic of first-generation students, I started studying to become a teacher, also with a clear career perspective of going into teaching later on. After completing my teacher training programme, I did the classic preparatory service, which I did in the state of Berlin. I had previously studied in Bielefeld and always wanted to go into research a little and going into research a little is of course difficult and then I was very lucky to get a doctoral scholarship from the Friedrich Ebert Foundation straight after the preparatory service.

And then it was always such an interplay between school, between historical education, between gender history and diversity history and then, I think in retrospect, I ended up quite quickly at this Professor of Historical Education at the FU Berlin. In other words, there wasn’t some kind of plan behind it, but it basically happened that way, if I were to summarise it retrospectively.

I would like to jump back to the point “studies”. Was it clear from the very start that you would study after graduating high school, or did you at first still think about doing an apprenticeship or take a different career path?

It was actually clear that I would want to study after doing my high school diploma. My parents valued it very much that I would start studying at the university. I myself had the idea at some points in-between to start an apprenticeship as an organ builder. My parents said “no, you were successful most of the time in school, you are going to study at the university now”. I was not accompanied by the rhetorics of being the First from the family [to study], but it was just clear that this would be the path afterwards. That means it was self-explanatory: it didn’t have to be forced upon anyone, and my parents didn’t have to be convinced. It was so to say self-explanatory and then the rest of my path was then developed. We discussed which subjects could be it, which subjects were meaningful, but that I would study after my high school diploma was never questioned interestingly.

Yes, that is very interesting. The difference between organ builder and professor of history is also interesting. What were the biggest challenges on your path in the academic world?

The challenges that I only became aware of later were that at the beginning of the academic world, I was constantly being signalled that the work I was doing or the way I was performing in seminars, the way results were being presented, was not sufficient or that I had come into contact with academic forms of representation that initially seemed totally foreign to me. Of course, I can only say a lot of this retrospectively, but I found the university as an academic space very strange at first. I hardly felt comfortable in university seminars at first because there were always three or four people who were very quick to take the floor, who also used rhetoric that was very foreign to me at the time.

And when I thought I could contribute, I always felt, well, inferior sounds too big a word, but not so equal and always thought, well, you can’t dress it up in this sophisticated rhetoric anyway. You can’t present the arguments, the counterarguments with such rigour and that caused a great deal of uncertainty. I found that very remarkable. In history, I studied history and German, and it was much more noticeable in history than in German, where it was much easier to get into a dialogue in seminars, to exchange ideas, to make your own statement, including in terms of content.

And can you remember if there was at some point a conscious turning point or maybe also a key moment when you said, although I felt foreign here in the beginning, science is my calling?

In hindsight, that was two things. Firstly, something completely different, seemingly different. At some point I started to get involved in science politics at the university, was first active in the queer committee and then in the Asta (student senate), and in this way I grew into science from the political fringes, so to speak. But then, contrary to expectations, after my intermediate examination in history, I got a really good response for the paper I wrote. I hadn’t even dreamed of it. I was praised so much for this intermediate examination paper by the supervising lecturers that I thought, well, maybe your insecurity was also the wrong way to approach this academic business and I have to say that this was a kind of key moment that made me think, well, maybe you can do something after all or maybe it’s worth getting more involved in the seminars, in academic communication and so on.

And do you think there was a positive response to your work because you have somehow adapted, or you found out how to write and present in the academical style? Or was it maybe that you found a person that saw the potential in you and appreciated what you had to offer?

I think the latter, because I was also signalled there, i.e. with really detailed consultations on this intermediate examination paper, that the paper was really good in terms of content and argumentation, but that there was room for improvement, so to speak, in terms of academic appearance, the use of certain forms of language and so on. And that was also always the case with the two supervisors at the time, it wasn’t a kind of real mentoring relationship, but perhaps a shorter coaching relationship in retrospect, it was always a topic that, when it was signalled, basically stay as you are, but then also try to sell yourself as best you can in the academic world without feeling like a stranger. And it was always a really big help to me that I had this very good intermediate examination paper in my bag, but that I was also told to do something now because I can do it, but I also have to try a bit to stay like I am.

Yes, amazing. And what would you say is generally the role that the support networks played for your career path. I think arbeiterkind.de, that probably existed after you were already done with your studies and your doctoral studies. You have already mentioned mentors, the two supervisors of your thesis, but were there more people or networks where you could say that they played a role in your academic success?

In the end, apart from a small number of lecturers at the university, that was a good networking opportunity with other fellow students. So, we were a group of people who talked to each other a lot. We often prepared together. We attended seminars together. So, it really was a network with other students, not all of whom came from non-academic families, but where we had come together a bit to continue on the same path at university. And essentially, they were all teacher training students who had a classic career goal in mind. So, for a while, we studied very consistently in accordance with the study regulations, so to speak, and looked at how we could get through the system as well as possible, but also effectively, and then actively organise this phase of our studies.

When one looks at your profile on the website of the university, then one notices that you have as a first point under your biography that you are a first generation academic. What led you to decide to put this information out so openly and at such a top spot?

The first reason, and the really important one, is that I am really proud of it and that I don’t want to give the impression that this is some kind of deficit biography that is being told. Because I mentioned briefly at the beginning that my parents and my family never hindered me on my path into the academic world but always encouraged me and also reinforced the resources that my parents had, but which they also didn’t have. And I’m really proud of that. For example, I received BAföG (financial support for students) during my studies, but never the maximum rate, because people think that today: Non-academic households, they don’t have any money, and things aren’t really good for them materially either. At least at the time when I was studying, a worker’s income was a really good thing. In other words, it was never materially precarious, and we also saw the world with my parents and went on holidays and all that. But I want to signalise that I’m very proud that it actually worked out this way, but also that it’s not statistically possible for someone from a non-academic household to climb the academic ladder so quickly, so to speak.

A third result could also be that you encourage people that are in the same situation.

Yes, absolutely. And in fact, students often talk to me about it. They never do it publicly or in lectures, but often during consultation hours. Or often, when they sign up for consultation hours, they simply mention it in passing. Of course, this means that when there are consultation hours with students, and I know this in advance, I look forward to these appointments much more because I know that it’s also about talking about biographical matters, but then I also know that I might be able to meet the students in a different way.

Many students are afraid to go to consultation hours with professors. I can’t understand that myself, because I think, ‘Gosh, nobody has to be afraid of me, but respect or something in front of academic authorities, that happens quite often. And if this is signalled in advance, it is actually encouraging, but also perhaps something like not having so much respect or also creating the opportunity for students to signal in advance that someone is also coming from a first-generation family, so that you can start a completely different conversation right away.

Yes, and I think it could well be due to the fact that people have already had negative experiences with other professors and this fear stems from that.

Yes, right!  And I’ve never had a student tell me that it was explicitly signalled that you don’t fit in with us or you don’t fit into our habitus concept because you come from a non-academic family, but it’s usually a diffuse feeling of rejection or not belonging. Explicit markers of difference in the academic world are that people talk about migrant backgrounds and often about student teachers, who are perceived as not performing so well or something, and rarely explicitly about first-generation students. And I think a lot of this happens on an implicit level with students, that they realise that they may not meet with the same approval as other students in terms of their habitual appearance and the way they present themselves. And here it is indeed important that lecturers very quickly signalise that, hey, here with us, with me, when you come to the consultation hour, this is not the issue for the time being.

I definitely want to talk to you in a moment about how we can respond better to needs and how you can do this yourself. But first, I would like to briefly define the terms. Or rather, I would like to ask you how you define the term first generation doctoral student.

I would define a first generation doctorate as a person who actually starts a doctorate after graduation and comes from a family with a broad and wide family concept, of course, where the person is not the first to have an academic career or doctorate, so to speak, among all cousins and siblings, but where at least the parents do not have an academic degree and have not attempted a doctorate. It may be that the precise definitions in terms of subject are different. And I have often learnt from students who were socialised in East Germany and who also look back on East German family biographies that academic professions were grouped a little differently there and that some professions were classified as academic, and some were not and it was different in the old Federal Republic.

But I would say that the academic degree or doctorate of the parents is actually the decisive criterion in that sense. Almost regardless of whether you have a kind of peer network of siblings or cousins or other relatives who also have a doctorate.

And do you think there are different challenges when one is in the first generation of doing their doctorate in comparison to their studies?

Yes, because the phase of material insecurity is a longer one. You have to have the confidence to be courageous over a longer period of time, to embark on another doctoral path that does not lead to a concrete professional qualification and that does not lead to a clear career perspective in material terms. Because as I said briefly earlier, for many or some first-generation students, the problem is not essentially a material deficit from the family, so to speak, but a socialisation topos that we actually assume that an education leads to a profession and that something similar is expected from a degree. And of course you have to free yourself from that in the doctorate. And have a bit more stamina, develop stamina, in order to be able to endure this perhaps longer dry spell of lacking prospects.

Yes, that’s a very interesting point. And things like you described earlier, in your own career during your studies, that you initially felt alienated and perhaps didn’t get to grips with the academic language or scientific working methods and presentation style. Do you think these are things that have actually already been dealt with during your doctoral studies, you’ve got used to it, otherwise you don’t do it? Or are you saying that this is still an issue for many people?

I believe that it is still an issue for many people, but I think that also depends very much on the subject of the doctorate. I did my doctorate in gender history and even back then I always worked in history didactics. These are fields in the field of education and history in which there are already many more people who combine political, emancipatory ideas with academic practice and in which there are also quantitatively many more people from non-academic families, from first-generation families, so that the field in which I did my doctorate, gender history, was actually a rather open field for first-generation doctoral researchers. It can be completely different in other subjects, perhaps in art history, perhaps in philosophy.

A student who is doing her doctorate in art history recently told me that she went on an excursion to Italy for the first time with her fellow doctoral researchers and was totally ridiculed for travelling to Italy for the first time in her life. And these are experiences that you don’t have in gender history. There is much more basic understanding of the material or local or habitual limitations of those who then start the doctorate. In other words, because of the field that I sought out or that perhaps found me, it never became as virulent as perhaps in other fields.

Are there any studies on whether first generation doctoral researchers are more represented in some subjects rather than in others? Do you know anything about that?

So there are studies that show that, at least in the field of study, first-generation students are much more prevalent in the educational sciences, specialised didactics and in the teaching profession. And it’s not a study, but it’s a kind of personal empiricism that many of my professorial colleagues in subject didactics professorships across the board, across the subjects, tend to come from non-academic families, from first generation families, than in other subjects. I experience this time and again, and we talk about it quite openly.

Now it just sounded like, when you mentioned this excursion to Italy, that there is still a lot to reflect on at universities, let’s say. Do you generally think that universities in Germany are prepared for the needs of first-generation students and doctoral candidates?

I think, no, without playing off different categories of diversity against each other. I don’t want to be misunderstood at any point, there is rightly, and I think this is absolutely right, a great deal of sensibility in the area of discrimination in relation to gender and discrimination in relation to sexual identity. But I’ve also noticed a kind of stifled ignorance, a stifled silence in many of the meetings I’ve attended at my university when it comes to what the deficits of students from first generation families are. It’s always dismissed as, well, do they fulfil the performance standards that have to be met? It’s almost the same helplessness that prevails here and at many universities with students from immigrant backgrounds.

You don’t know exactly how to deal with them and there is often a sense of insecurity or even fear that this might lower performance standards or that the university will have to orientate itself towards performance requirements or the way it provides support. In other words, it is very rarely explicitly stated. It is also rarely said at universities that universities are institutions that create social inequality anyway. If there are still a lot of people who say that we come to this university because of social inequality, then perhaps it is also a structural problem that students don’t like to talk about.

Talk to us a bit more about how universities might create social injustices.

We all know, and this is unfortunately empirically proven in a very depressing way, that the education system in Germany is unequal and unfair. The three-tier school system does not really manage to level out social inequalities but rather reproduces them. And the same applies to those students who actually end up at universities later on. A much smaller percentage of students who come from non-academic households, from first-generation households, go to university, and the bottleneck becomes even narrower when it comes to doctorates and later also when it comes to professorships. In other words, it is evidently demonstrable that students from first-generation families fare even worse in this bottleneck of the university than students from academic families. And in this respect, the university system, the education system with the bottleneck of the doctorate, is structurally designed so that students from non-academic families will drop out at some point, so to speak. They are not planned for. Not habitual, but also not in the idea of ​​what career path you will take after your doctorate and so on. So I would say that the idea of ​​college and university, as we think of it in Germany, well, structurally also has the mission of not allowing students from first-generation families to get as far as students from other families. That may be a blatant political statement, but I’ll leave it as it is for now.

It is also very important to speak about this because if one doesn’t talk about it, then there won’t be any changes. What do you think can be done by professors or supervisors of doctoral thesis so that one can adapt to the needs of first generation doctoral candidates, also in cases where the supervisors don’t have the same background such as you now.

It is important to make it very clear to doctoral researchers in supervisory relationships that you should speak to me ahead of time if you have any difficulties. Are the difficulties material? Is it because you have to earn money on the side while you are doing your doctorate? Is it because you cannot cope with the workload? Is it because you cannot structure your working day properly? Because I have no idea what networks doctoral researchers are in that might be able to help them in other ways. And I know that timely discussions with supervisors are important in order to really clarify what my problems are? Am I perhaps not suitable for a doctorate after all?

That can always come out. That can always come out with all students. Or how can other problems be solved? How can it be that I still have to do a lot of material work to support myself because I am not getting any funding for my doctorate? What does that do to the work plan? So, it is important to always, always, always try to talk to the carers about these problems as often as possible. Of course, the supervisors also have to signal that they are available to talk. I think that is essential.

Would you do that in general or if you already know that someone is a first-generation doctoral candidate or student? Because you have to know that first in order to then be able to signal, talk to me. Or do you say, no, I would do that regardless of that, because there could be other reasons why someone might not be able to cope with their work. I would just always signal, no matter what it is, I’m open to hearing things, come to me.

I would always signal to all students, all doctoral candidates, talk to me, but really to first generation students in a much more emphatic way. Because when I say to doctoral candidates from academic households, talk to me, they do it because they know how it works, and they know that it is also common practice. While doctoral candidates from first generation families first of all really need to know that a supervisor is there for this purpose, that the supervisory relationship also has this function and that it is anything but a shame to actually do it. It is not about somehow maintaining pride or not having to talk about certain things.

So, what my experience has shown: Many doctoral candidates from academic households know this and they do it. Some don’t do it because they don’t need to, but students from first generation families need to be explicitly encouraged, they need to know really clearly that it is possible, and it is even expected. This is part of a good care relationship.

But in order to speak to them explicitly about this, one has to know that these are first-generation doctoral researchers.

Most people tell me that. Most of my doctoral researchers tell me that explicitly, if I haven’t already heard about it through contacts in the last phase of their studies, in conversations, or seen it in their CVs. But I usually know that before I actually have to ask. So that’s usually what they tell me themselves.

Now I am curious because you said you can see it through the CV. One doesn’t usually list the professions of their parents. How do you notice through the CV?

What I am saying is not empirically valid at all, but many students write down their part-time jobs in their CVs that they did alongside their studies. And if it is not just assistant jobs at universities, but if it is something like – I am exaggerating completely – saleswomen, salespeople in a textile shop or waiters in a bar or at Burger King or McDonalds, I somehow have an initial suspicion that it is a person who perhaps comes from a first-generation family. And when I then talk to the students or future doctoral candidates about it, it is usually brought up very openly and quickly. Then it is made explicit.

That’s good, because it’s another marker that’s relatively neutral, even if you say it’s not empirical, but it’s an observation that you’ve made, which your colleagues can perhaps take to heart, even if they’re not quite as sensitive, because you have to have a certain level of sensitivity to be able to sense it or ask about it and know that a person is first generation, I assume.

Correct.

Do you think that other students or doctoral candidates might not even list a part-time job like this at Burger King, but would say, I’ll just write down the student assistant job because it’s related to the job I’m applying for, and I’ll ignore the other stuff, even if I may have done it, like waiting tables?

That could be right. I also ask students when a situation arises where we have an advertisement for a student assistant position and I then say this in the lecture, look here, you can apply to us here. I then say explicitly, go ahead and write down all the jobs you have done, even if you initially think that they have nothing to do with the specific position you will be applying for later with us. Not even in order to then really investigate them later: Well, are you first generation or not? But for me that is an important clue as to whether it might be the case after all and then to develop a sensitivity for it in the conversation.

Back to the university as a system. How would you say we can promote more diversity in science? Generally speaking, on the one hand, but of course also with regard to different origins in relation to the level of education of the prospective scientists‘ families of origin.

We must encourage students and especially doctoral candidates to tell us this again and again when it comes to introducing themselves in discussion groups or taking a stand in seminar contributions. That it is always about talking about things like family origins or, for me, sexual orientation. That it becomes a natural topic that things are explicitly in the discourse. That sounds harsh now and it sounds as if I am demanding over and over again from students or doctoral candidates to confess to supposedly private things that are eminently political. But these things must always be on the table so that it is always clear to the outside world that there are people who make the university environment much more diverse than we think at first glance.

So, adopt a certain transparent and perhaps to a certain extent confrontational attitude here.

Right. And that can sound like a kamikaze undertaking. Because of course it may not be met with a positive response from all colleagues, or it may be seen as superfluous or outside the field or something like that. But my opinion is actually that those who, because of a certain privilege, can afford to talk about their social background, gender, sexual identity, should do so. Because in fact, if you manage to attend a university in the German education system, you have already achieved a high degree of privilege.

And when you have achieved this high degree of privilege, you can always make it your task to provide information about who you are with this degree of privilege. When we work with diversity categories or describe ourselves with them, we are often used to describing ourselves first using the categories that discriminate against us and not the categories that perhaps privilege us. That means I can also stand up in my lecture and say that I am a gay working-class child. That is correct and true. But then I use categories that initially make me appear marginalized. But I can only do it in this specific social position in the lecture hall because I am a male, German, white professor. And very different categories come into play, but it is important to always make them visible so that the awareness that social inequalities and injustices arise also has something to do with these social categories.

Do you think that this is something that could be established in an academic context, that one imagines oneself in such a way that one first names the categories that privilege one and then those on the basis of which one is potentially discriminated against?

I think that would be good. We are currently running into debates that we probably cannot go into in depth here, with wokeness and identity politics and so on. These are big, different, complex debates. But I think it would be good if, in introduction rounds, we first developed a sensitivity for categories that privilege us and then for categories that potentially discriminate against us, or at least mentioned both, so that we then also determine what kind of domination-ridden space academic education takes place in.

Let’s make it a little more complex, because one of your research fields is intersectionality. Now that we have just talked about the diversity categories, I would ask you to briefly define it for those listening who may not know what intersectionality is, and then say what you think intersectionality means in the context of first-generation doctoral studies.

Intersectionality means that there are different social categories in society that describe our standing, our social position in society, so to speak. Classic categories from the USA are race, class and gender. Many others are conceivable. Ethnicity, religion or, in Germany, the much-cited migration background. Intersectionality is about starting to think about how these categories interact with each other and how these categories are categories that, through their interaction, simultaneously ensure that we are privileged in a certain way and in another way ensure that we are also marginalized in a certain way. I can stand in a lecture and say that I am a gay working-class child, then I would take up a category like sexual identity and a category like class.

At the same time, I can say that I am a German, white professor. Then I would take categories that make me appear privileged, which I undoubtedly am, there is no need to kid ourselves about that. And then you can reflect on how these categories are connected. Make assumptions about them. Well, does it have something to do with my gender that I was able to become a professor as a gay working-class child? What if I, as her person, had a so-called migrant background and came from a first-generation family? What would it be like then with privilege and non-privilege and so on? So, you could always reflect on intersectional categories, i.e. the interaction of social categories, to see: well, where do I stand myself and what does that have to do with the power relations as I move around in the academic world.

Thank you for your explanations and also for the many examples. I think it is also important for our listeners, who perhaps tend to use categories that indicate privilege, to be clear about what other realities exist. I would now like to briefly shift the perspective and no longer focus on what universities and professors can do but rather focus more on doctoral candidates and those interested in doing a doctorate. We have already talked about this a bit before, but perhaps there is further advice you would give to someone who is the first in their family to pursue a doctorate.

One important piece of advice from me is to really take the time to calmly think about whether you want to do this. And don’t come to the idea too quickly, well, I don’t know if this will work and if I can do it but rather let yourself be carried away by the enthusiasm of a topic for a while and then think about whether I would like to work on this topic more intensively. So first give yourself the space to think about a doctorate through your own thinking or, to put it much more bluntly: people, dare to do it, because it’s within your horizon. You can do it too, you’re no worse than anyone else. And if you have a topic that interests you so much that you want to think about it scientifically for a long time, then seriously think about wanting to do it. That’s not a pipe dream.

And then, in the second step, of course, look at who are possible allies on the path that I can then take. How can I take up the topic further? How can I implement it? But really, first of all, make it conscious. And if I want to do that, then there are ways to go down that path and find supporters.

I would like to briefly touch on the first step or the first point you mentioned, because on the one hand I think it’s very nice to say that I’ll let myself be driven and motivated by the enthusiasm and interest that I have, for example, for academic work or for a specific topic. I asked myself whether it’s worthwhile to reflect on my own motivation right from the start, in terms of whether I really have a lot of intrinsic motivation or whether I perhaps have to prove something to someone or whether it’s been passed on to me as a kind of inheritance from my family that I’m now the person who proves to the outside world that an academic career is possible, for example.

Yes, you’re raising a very important point, because it should always be clear to doctoral candidates that if their motivation is to prove to their family or the world that they can do it, then it is a legitimate goal, a legitimate concern to really want to prove it, and at the same time they potentially need to protect themselves from disappointment. Because maybe, I haven’t experienced that in my family myself, but I hear it again and again, because then something like a successful doctorate might not get the recognition in the family that the doctorate deserves or that it deserves in the academic world.

If you only want to do a doctorate out of the awareness that you can do it yourself or prove it to your family, I don’t think that’s a good idea. Because there are now many other fields in which you can prove what you’re capable of professionally, what you can achieve. I think that a doctorate is the wrong field in which you can prove how capable you are or that you can socialize in this academic world. That leads to a lot of disappointment, I think.

It’s just the only field that allows you to have the popular two letters in front of your name.

Yes, right. Well, that can always be the case. I mean, in my field, history, it’s rare that people explicitly approach me and say that I want to do a doctorate so that I can later be qualified for certain jobs, so that I can do something completely different in medicine or law or earn a lot more money as a lawyer once I’ve got my doctorate. That doesn’t happen in our field, it’s really the ticket to a further academic career. And that requires enthusiasm for the topic and taking it seriously that you can even enter the realm of possibilities offered by a doctorate. If you do it just out of a kind of persistence, to say, I can do it too, I want to prove it, it will not lead to a good end. That is my prognosis.

If you have decided to do this because you are interested in the topic, in academic work, and then during your doctorate you have to fight impostor syndrome, I have a lot of self-doubt. What strategies have helped you personally to deal with it? Or maybe you’ll say that these were things that didn’t affect me at all, even now, when I didn’t have to fight with them.

During my doctorate I always had serious doubts about whether I would ever find a job in the field of history later on that would enable me to live off of it in a very banal way, as a historian at a university or research institution, and I was always personally lucky – and that’s why what I’m saying here now is perhaps not so representative of my biography – that I had this classic teaching degree. I always had the option of going back to school, which would never have been a step backwards or anything like that for me. That means I was able to do science and do my doctorate with the knowledge that you can do something else that potentially won’t make you unhappy for the rest of your life.

That was a privilege because I had the opportunity to study to become a teacher first. That means I had the option of falling back, and falling back didn’t mean that I had a worse chance, but it would have worked, so I was able to approach my doctorate with, well, let’s say, inner calm. I had funding from a scholarship, and I knew that you could always go back to school, then it would be fine. That’s why I never experienced the time of my doctorate as a time of such great professional fears, but I did really think about it, well, you really enjoy what you’re doing now, is it an opportunity that you can live off of financially later on, if that happens, wonderful, if it doesn’t happen, well, the alternatives aren’t the worst either.

Yes, I can understand that. Also, what you mentioned at the beginning of the interview and what is also my experience is that first generation students and doctoral candidates often have an increased need for security, especially regarding financial matters.

Yes, that’s right. And sometimes students from academic households laugh at it a little and label it as an exaggerated need for security. But in a neoliberal society we’ve perhaps already reached the point where people don’t really want to talk about professional insecurity anymore. But it’s clear that through what we do, through our education, we also have the goal of somehow achieving secure prospects. And for first-generation students, it’s often a more explicit concern because they can’t rely on the material or habitual networks of their academic family. In that sense, it’s understandable, but it’s also an opportunity to free themselves from it in an emancipatory way.

Are there scholarships that you would recommend for first generation doctoral researchers, or would you say that a scholarship might not be the correct way because someone has even less social security because one doesn’t pay the unemployment insurance and so on?

You are completely right that a scholarship is seen socio-politically as not the best opportunity, especially for health and pension insurance. At the same time there are foundations that value first-generation biographies, the Heinrich-Böll-foundation, the Hans-Böckler-foundation, the Friedrich-Ebert-foundation, also the Rosa-Luxemburg-foundation see this as a productive element of the CV, when one mentions that they are from a first-generation family. All foundations make it a bit difficult because volunteer work, which for me is also a sign of incorporating into the academic habitus, sometimes is taken into account too much, but the foundations have meanwhile gone into thinking that well, volunteer work is something that one has to afford in order to do it. But a scholarship is also a very good opportunity to even have a material income at the start, so that you can continue working on your thesis.  Better, of course, and more secure, are positions for academic staff. They are technically much better for social insurance purposes. This also depends on finding supervisors at universities that allow the “free room” on an everyday basis to work and bring your doctoral thesis to a good end. For academic positions in the work area or professorships it is usually the case that there is way more academic administration and teaching. That means one has more tasks alongside their own doctoral project.

We have come to the end of the interview.

Okay.

Is there a message that you want to send specifically to doctoral researchers from non-academic families?

I hope that a lot of people would hopefully say at this point, first of all it is not a deficit and second, I don’t perceive your family ever as a problematic space and a deficit. They are proud of you; you should also be proud of them. My mother is the only person who has read all of my texts, I should maybe say that again at this point. And allow yourself to make your family’s history visible in this privileged system of the university.

Is there another important point that we forgot to discuss?

I don’t think so. One could say a lot on a subject-specific basis. I think that everything I have said is true in the first line for the humanities, again with a focus on people who are in the teaching courses or in gender history where habitual problems are different than in other departments. But I can naturally only give information on that.

Thank you very much Prof. Lücke for sharing your experience with us and for giving us so many insights.

With pleasure.

Outro

This was an interview with Professor Martin Lücke, in which we discussed about the challenges and opportunities of the first generation of doctoral researchers. You can also listen to our other episodes. You will find more inspiring discussions and some interesting insights on the subject doctoral studies. On the website of this episode we will also link additional information in case you want to read more on the subject of today’s episode or Professor Martin Lücke himself. I am Dr. Marlies Klamt and this was the DRS Podcast, a podcast of Dahlem Research School of the Free University of Berlin. Thank you very much for listening and see you on the next episode.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Marlies Klamt, co-host of our podcast