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McAlpine, Lynn. "Identity-trajectory: Reframing Early Career Academic Experience." British Educational Research Journal 40.6 (n.d.): 952-69. 1 Dec. 2014. Web.

In the 2014 article “Identity Trajectory: Reframing Early Career Academic Experience” Lynn McAlpine looks at how a person pursuing a PhD at an English or Canadian institution navigates their early career development and the impact that has on their identity. She develops her thesis by explaining how other research studies on identity have been quantitative in nature with a focus on structural, systematic identity building, and the qualitative approach of her longitudinal studies help to fill in the gap in understanding of how individuality affects identity construction. She furthers the concept with the component of a trajectory, which in this paper places identity in the changing contexts of the person’s life. Her goal was to use this research to help increase retention rates for PhD programs. Her research is joining an extensive body of literature on higher education and is to be circulated among the curators of various graduate programs for a deeper understanding of potential recruits for their programs.