RSS 1.0Education and Social Justice Research Group
The Education and Social Justice Research Group is concerned by the relationships between education, identities and equality issues in the context of late modernity. Through empirical research and a critical engagement with education practices and policies its main ambition is to provide a better understanding of how inequalities related to gender, ‘race’, social class, age, ableness and sexual orientation are reproduced and resisted in educational settings. Ultimately, a major endeavour is to ensure that all individuals and groups, from pre-school to higher education, can benefit from education equitably.
Recent Submissions
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Understanding children's educational experiences through image based researchContemporary social science research is increasingly focusing on the need to research the lives of individuals, especially children, from their own perspectives. Studies seek to capture and make visible the diversity of children’s lives, but this requires that researchers explore methodologies that enable participants to tell their own stories. In recent years, the growing sense of urgency to uncover the realities of children’s worlds (Christensen and James 2000), has been accompanied by the growing recognition of the need to fully engage the child in any research process that involves them (Green and Hogan 2007). This has been paralleled by a renewed interest in visual ethnography (Banks 2001), prompting second editions of certain key texts such as those of Pink (2007) and Rose (2007). Clearly, visual methodologies allow researchers the possibility to enter children’s worlds in very immediate, yet creative ways using techniques such as drawings (Kilkelly et al. 2004), video diaries (Haw 2008) and photography (Ewald and Lightfoot 2001).
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Researching and understanding educational networksResearching and Understanding Educational Networks extends the discussion of educational networks in a unique and novel way by relating it to teacher learning. Following an investigation of teacher and school networks in the UK, the authors found that theoretical perspectives taken from existing work on such networks were not adequate to provide an understanding of their potential, nor to provide the basis for researching them in ways that reflected the variety of teacher experience. This book presents analyses of the problems with existing theories of teacher learning, which for example draw on ideas of 'communities of practice', and explores what network theories can be brought to the problem of how teachers and schools create and share new knowledge about practice. Innovative networking theories discussed include: social network analysis social capital theories actor-network theory investigations of electronic networks including computer-meditated conferencing how people learn at events such as conferences. Researching and Understanding Educational Networks explores a new application of networks theories derived from quite different fields of work, and extends it both by being concerned about networks beyond organisations and specifically about educational networks. Their application to educational networks, and to teacher learning in particular, is a unique contribution of the book. This enables it to be of interest to both researchers and those studying for higher degrees, including students who are professionals working in schools.
