Huddersfield Centre for Research in Education and Society (HudCRES) newsletter issue 8 - Feb 2020

hud.ac.uk/research/education

Issue 08 February 2020

HudCRES welcomes Professor Hazel Bryan We are very pleased to welcome Professor of Education Hazel Bryan to HudCRES – recently appointed as Dean of the School of Education and Professional Development.

Hazel joins us from the School of Education and Humanities at the University of Gloucestershire and before this was Head of Research, Knowledge Exchange and Consultancy at Canterbury Christchurch University. She is a member of the Executive Board of the Society for Educational Studies (SES), and has recently taken up the Chair of the International Professional Development Association (IPDA). She is also Vice Chair on the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers (UCET) and co-Editor of the IPDA journal Practice: contemporary issues in practitioner education.

Situated at the interface between education policy and values, Hazel has published research in the areas of radicalisation, extremism, Prevent, teacher identity and professionalism. Her most recent book, Fundamental British Values: Radicalisation, National Identity and Britishness, co-authored by Dr Lynn Revell from Canterbury Christchurch University, provides a critical analysis of the statutory requirements to promote Fundamental British Values in schools, universities and childcare settings in the UK and examines the impact of fundamental British values on teacher professionalism.

Hazel will deliver her public Inaugural Professorial Lecture at HudCRES in Autumn 2020. If you would like to be notified about this event by email, please join our mailing list (see back page for details).

Fundamental British Values: Radicalisation, National Identity and Britishness Lynn Revell and Hazel Bryan Emerald Publishing ISBN: 9781787145085

hud.ac.uk/research/education

Religious education in primary schools HudCRES has been successful in gaining funding from the Culham St. Gabriels’ Trust, to support primary school teachers of RE to undertake a practitioner research project.

The focus of the project is curriculum design combining Big Ideas for Religious Education (Wintersgill, 2017) and the statutory National Entitlement to RE recommended by the final report of the Commission on RE, sponsored by the Religious Education Council for England and Wales.

The project, taking place over this academic year and led by Dr Emma Salter and Professor Lyn Tett, has recruited nine Primary School RE teachers from across Bradford, Calderdale, Kirklees and Oldham to take part. With the intention of developing a ‘communities of practice

approach’, participating teachers spent two full days at HudCRES in September 2019, followed by three half days in October and will continue to have halfday monthly meetings until June 2020.

During these meetings the teachers are developing their own research projects with support from Emma and Lyn, and sharing their experiences as practitioner-researchers. Meetings also include first-hand input from a variety of experienced researchers in Education. We were delighted to welcome Professor Denise Cush (formerly of Bath Spa University) to launch the project.

The project will create opportunities for these teachers: • to research excellence in Primary RE; • to develop as practitionerresearchers; • to offer a research informed response to the recommendation for a National Entitlement to RE; and • to become ambassadors for practitioner-research in Primary RE.

‘Modelling Landscapes for Resilient Pollination Services’ Funded by Research Councils UK as part of its Global Food Security programme this research aims to identify the impacts of climate and land use changes on pollinating insects, food production and wellbeing.

As social science lead, Professor Helen Lomax is working with a team of economists and environmental scientists from the Universities of Reading, Northampton and Lund (Sweden) to capture the ways that people experience and value the countryside. This includes the development of a short online survey which asks people to rate a series of images and say what they think about the landscapes illustrated.

To complete the survey please visit hud.ac/landscapes or scan the QR code below.

The research team would like to capture a range of perspectives so please share widely.

Find out more about the project by following the link at the end of the survey or by contacting h.lomax@hud.ac.uk

hud.ac.uk/research/education

Postgraduate research Dr Kat Simpson graduated with the award of Doctor of Philosophy at our graduation ceremony in November 2019 for her outstanding thesis entitled Education and the working class: primary teachers’ perspectives on education in a former mining community.

The research comprises a critical ethnography conducted in Lillydown – a former mining community in South Yorkshire. It explores the extent to which historical ways of being and doing, specific to the locale, continue to be transmitted and re-traditionalised, in often unknown and multiple ways, and frame the processes and experiences of education. It draws on neo-Marxist analyses of education and society, and uses Avery Gordon’s notion of ‘social haunting’ to understand the socio-historical context in which schooling takes place.

In her thesis, (available to download: eprints.hud. ac.uk/35073/) Dr Simpson argues for a move beyond conceptualisations of ‘social haunting’ as always registering harm, loss, and social injustice in order to fully understand the interplay of class, education, and social change, and potentially transform experiences of schooling for the working class. Echoing some of the messages in her thesis, and reflecting on her doctoral journey, she said: Above: Dr Kat Simpson with her PhD supervisor Professor Robin Simmons. November 2019

I know I have been lucky. I am part of a small number, particularly from my working-class background, who get the chance to do this. I get that, I see it and I live it still. But what I can do now, in the position I am in, is to continue the fight for the rest of us.

Would I recommend becoming a postgraduate researcher here? Absolutely – “Get thi sen t’ ‘uddersfield”

Dr Simpson’s future plans include writing a proposal for a monograph based on her thesis (an invitation extended by her external examiner, a series editor for Routledge); writing a chapter for a book on researching post-industrial communities led by researchers at the University of Kent; and speaking at various conferences and seminars. We are also very pleased that she will maintain her connection with Huddersfield – contributing to the teaching on our BA (Hons) Childhood Studies course.

If you would like to know more about becoming a postgraduate researcher, visit research.hud.ac.uk/research-degrees/

hud.ac.uk/research/education

A decade of NEET research For well over a decade, academic staff here at Huddersfield have been involved in researching the lives of marginalised young people – especially those classified as NEET (not in education, employment or training) or as vulnerable to becoming NEET. The origins of this work can be traced back to 2007-08 when Professor Robin Simmons and Dr Ron Thompson first became interested in ‘employability programmes’ for NEET young people.

Dr Lisa Russell was recruited to work with them on an initial research project which resulted in the publication of NEET Young People and Training for Work: Learning on the Margins (2011).

Research funding followed, perhaps most notably from the Leverhulme Trust and Joseph Rowntree Foundation. In both cases the research was innovative – using ethnographic methods to follow young people’s day-to-day lived experience of being NEET, and their participation and non-participation in education and employment.

The longitudinal study for the Leverhulme Trust examined the trajectories of a group of NEET young people over a period of almost three years and included those who had experience being in care, exclusion from school, homelessness and other barriers to participation. Its findings resulted in a second book, Education, Work and Social Change: Young people and Marginalisation in Post-Industrial Britain (2014) as well as a range of research papers in leading academic journals.

The research has been exciting, challenging and sometimes uncomfortable. Its findings challenge many of the established stereotypes about NEET young people and initiatives which seek to engage or re-engage them in education and work.

Robin Simmons Professor of Education

Professor Robin Simmons has recently been invited to take part in an Erasmus+ project Improving Transitions Enabling Results (ITER), coordinated by GEMS Northern Ireland. It will investigate how vocational education can be used in original and novel ways to re-engage NEET young people. Funded until 2022, it involves researchers from Hungary, Italy, Portugal and Romania, as well as the UK, and partners from the public, private and voluntary sectors. The intention is to develop forms of pedagogy and new resources which will help practitioners break down barriers to education and work.

NEET young people and Training for Work Robin Simmons and Ron Thompson Trentham Books ISBN: 9781858564838

Education, Work and Social Change: Young people and marginalisation in PostIndustrial Britain Robin Simmons, Ron Thompson and Lisa Russell Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 9781137335920

Dr Lisa Russell and Dr Ron Thompson are collaborating with Wavehill Social and Economic Research on a project commissioned by Blaenau Gwent Council, South Wales, to evaluate initiatives supported by the European Social Fund which aim to improve youth employment and attainment.

An infographic, available to download, illustrates some of the key issues and messages in our research focused on young people classified as NEET. hud.ac/NEETInfographic2019

hud.ac.uk/research/education

The most important things I ever learned... ...rarely came from my formal education

Since childhood I’ve found that the ideas that have blown my mind and changed me as a human being have come from fictions, initially from the books I borrowed from the library, but later from films and television drama too. I think that is why so much of my research has focused on learning in everyday life, and particularly on learning from fiction.

A highlight for Professor Christine Jarvis this year was being invited to speak at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim to talk about her work on fictions as pedagogies at the launch of their Learning in Everyday Practices Research Group (ntnu.edu/ipl/liep).

For some time, Professor Jarvis has also been working with Professor Patricia Gouthro from the Mount St. Vincent University in Nova Scotia, Canada, with whom she shares a passion for narrative fiction. They recently published the book Professional Education with Fiction Media: Imagination for Engagement and Empathy in Learning.

This book comprises a collection of case-studies showing how various professions use fiction to educate the next generation of professionals.

It covers a wide range of professional areas including teaching, social work, podiatry, health care, epidemiology and law, and looks at forms of fiction from Harry Potter and Dr Who, through to postmodern films and novels.

Professional Education with Fiction Media: Imagination for Engagement and Empathy in Learning Christine Jarvis and Patricia Gouthro Palgrave Macmillan ISBN: 978-3-030-17692-1

hud.ac.uk/research/education

Upcoming events HudCRES organises a regular programme of free public lectures, seminars, practitioner research events and international symposia to which all are welcome.

Events are advertised on the HudCRES website hud.ac.uk/research/education as well as on the University of Huddersfield events page hud.ac.uk/events Details are occasionally subject to change and events are added to the programme throughout the year.

Public Lecture: Mission Impossible? Towards a racially just higher education

12 Feb 2020

Dr Nicola Rollock, Reader (Associate Professor) in Equity and Education at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Public Lecture: Compulsory education and the schooling of society

20 May 2020

Professor Gary McCulloch, Professor of the History of Education and Director of the International Centre for Historical Research in Education at UCL Institute of Education.

Symposium: Resisting neoliberalism in education: resources of hope

16 June 2020

Professor Kathleen Lynch, University College Dublin; Dr Anne Larson, Aarhus University, Denmark; Professor Vicky Duckworth, Edge Hill University; Professor Rob Smith, Birmingham City University and Professor Lyn Tett, HudCRES. The symposium will be based around the book ‘Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives’ Edited by Lyn Tett and Mary Hamilton and published by Policy Press in 2019.

The HudCRES Festival of Ideas

25 June 2020

Not as big as Glastonbury, but a lot less muddy, much easier to get tickets for and FREE!

from 3pm

Headliners to be announced.

Come along and experience research you might not have considered before. Be inspired.

Learn something new. Take away something to change your practice – or maybe even your life?

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Contact us HudCRES@hud.ac.uk +44 (0)1484 478249 hud.ac.uk/research/education Follow us on Twitter: @HudCRES 20010