Education

This research focuses on the urgent global call for education systems to be reimagined into a ‘new social contract’ that can repair injustices while transforming the future. Based in Rwanda where, despite challenges, there is strong political support for education transformation, this doctoral research seeks to explore the dynamics of environmental and epistemic justice and the potential for structural and transformative change through the integration of transgressive Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) methodologies into the newly introduced Competence-Based Curriculum (CBC). Collaborating with the Albertine Rift Conservation Society (ARCOS) and involving a research team of teachers, students, and parents, with NGO, ministry and district representatives, and academics in six Rwandan Eco-Schools, the research will use transdisciplinary knowledge co-creation approaches to explore and co-produce new learning approaches, pedagogical tools and curriculum guidance to support the integration of Sustainable Development Goals 13 (Climate Action) and 4 (Quality Education) in the CBC.

My research explores inclusion and exclusion issues within the Nigerian higher education system. I have selected an ethnography design to contribute to the decolonial discourse, its struggle and transformation of higher education, especially in the global south, and bring to the fore the issues around Inclusion and exclusion raised by the admission policy and selection into higher education. Finally, I hope my research will give the oppressed or marginalised students the avenue to share their everyday experiences of inequity and inequalities in the university.

Key researchers have identified challenges for deaf children with literacy, and found a gap between deaf learners’ cognitive abilities and their language learning levels. Deaf children struggle with depicting English sounds in writing because British Sign Language (BSL) does not have a written orthography.  My study would enable me to conduct an investigation to explore a deaf child’s bi-literacy potential by using BSL in its written form – SLwrite (Sign Language Write). The overall aim is to examine whether deaf children, if taught a representational, written form of their native visual-gestural sign language (L1), may better develop improved cognitive abilities in order to regenerate literacy skills in their second language, English (L2).

In this research, I will focus on an under-represented group of young people classified as ‘EAL’ (English as an additional language). There are 1.7 million EAL students in our secondary schools in the UK (17.1%).  These students are required to learn the majority language, English, so that they can access the curriculum; they face the double challenge of learning English while learning through English. By investigating students’ writing in GCSE exams, I aim to cut through the socioeconomic and demographic factors and to identify linguistic features that are indicative of higher grades. I will investigate exam corpora to understand what works in highly graded papers and find out the extent to which EAL students’ grades are affected by their linguistic characteristics, after controlling for socio-economic and demographic characteristics.

My research aims to study the inclusion and exclusion of indigenous ways of knowing in the curriculum and pedagogy of formal education. I aim to address the epistemic injustice faced by marginalised communities and the research draws inspiration from literature on decolonizing methodologies. I will be working collaboratively with children and adults from Soliga community in India to make the curriculum epistemically just and develop pedagogies that are relevant for the students.

My research focuses on the understanding of the identification of special educational needs in England, with the aim of facilitating a greater common understanding of special educational needs and so contributing to improving the effective use of limited educational resources.  I am focusing particularly on three categories of special educational need: moderate learning difficulties (MLD), autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) and social emotional and mental health (SEMH) within three English local authorities. I plan to follow an examination of local authority data trends with an exploratory survey of those involved in special educational needs identification.

My research will focus on the emergent concept of ‘metalinguistic modelling’, seeking to conceptualise it theoretically and to explore how it is operationalised pedagogically in the primary classroom. The research has the potential to change teachers’ practice in the management of talk about writing, and through this to make a material difference to children’s achievements in writing. The principal objectives of my study will be, firstly, to generate a theoretical conceptualisation of the term ‘metalinguistic modelling’, and secondly, to develop effective pedagogical practices in metalinguistic modelling which can be shared across the profession.

Since 2014 all school in England are required to actively promote ‘fundamental British values’ in line with the Counter-terrorism and Security Act and Ofsted inspections. Previous research highlights that the introduction of these “values” has led uncertainty and uneasiness about how they might be actively promoted. My research will take a bricolage approach and will:

1. Critically examine the values education discourse in its relation to delivering character and moral education in schools in England.
2. Apply Goodlad’s Curriculum framework and empirically explore how schools interpret and implement ‘fundamental British values’.
3. Apply a critical lens to the current values education agenda to highlight the complexity in enacting values in school system and the implications with Ofsted Inspections.

The emphasis on STEM in schools has led to conflicting pressures on science teachers to deliver high-stakes exam performance and to foster enthusiasm and career aspirations by making science relevant and meaningful to pupils. Some teachers run project-based activities spanning weeks or months, generally in addition to the standard curriculum and often in the ‘gaps’ or neglected spaces of the school timetable. I am using cultural-historical activity theory to understand how such activities develop, the various motives teachers and pupils bring to the activities, why difficulties arise and how (if) they are resolved. Agency is a key theme in my research.