Education

My research explores the cyclical nature of disengagement from mathematics, and what helps or

hinders re-engagement. Working with adults enrolled on Functional Skills mathematics courses in

Cornwall, I will investigate how low confidence, anxiety and reduced participation reinforce one another,

and how this cycle might be disrupted or reversed. Building on my master’s research, I will combine

surveys, interviews, lesson analysis and ethnographic conversations to explore learners’ experiences

over time. I aim to inform adult mathematics teaching and investigate how re-engagement can influence

learners’ confidence, aspirations, and everyday lives, particularly in contexts of economic disadvantage.

My PhD focuses on the interconnected relationship of universities, corporations, and financial

organisations and the impacts of these relationships on students. Specific focus on student

accommodation is given throughout the research, such as the differential impacts of housing

types and the analysis of networks within the sector of Purpose-Built Student Accommodation.

Their research is supported by University Mental Health Advisers Network, Save the Student, and

Somerset Council.

My research explores how time is structured, experienced and negotiated in youth work, and how

this shapes young people’s relationships, agency and sense of belonging. Youth organisations

work in different ways: some offer open-access spaces, while others provide structured or time-

limited programmes focused on outcomes. Both are valuable, but they organise time differently.

Through observations and conversations with young people and youth workers in contrasting

settings, I will examine how session length, programme rhythms, flexibility and institutional

expectations influence trust, participation and mattering. The study will consider how young

people navigate, reshape or resist these temporal conditions.

My work focuses on early literacy development in rural Tanzania. International initiatives and interventions in this area largely focus on assumptions about children’s foundational literacy learning drawn from Anglo-American contexts and overlook evidence of how children interact with and use printed materials in their family and community. I use a socio-culturally situated and multimodal framing of literacy which draws on children’s play and their religious and community practices, and how their relationships with siblings, peers and family members support this early literacy learning and development.   

Learning is highly relational, yet prevailing discourses in education position students as individually responsible for learning, attainment, and behaviour. My research follows a group of students from Yeat 9 to Year 11 to explore how narratives around attainment and learning influence students’ co-construction of an ethics of responsibility. I explore feminist and queer theoretical re-framings of responsibility that offer potential to rethink individualising impulses that position students in opposition to others, to consider new modes of cooperative relationality in school cultures.

Since the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, English literature teachers have been challenged to diversify their reading lists and to teach in ways that celebrate and support minoritised students. I will study how literature teachers in London and New Orleans manage to teach about racial and ethnic identity, and feel confident in doing so, while navigating anti-Critical Race Theory pressures ad discourses. The project will involve me conducting case studies – on both sides of the Atlantic — to identify the practical skills that confident English teachers use compared to those who are less confident in teaching about identity through literature. My aim is to co-design training materials to support British and American teachers to build confidence in teaching about identity and belonging through literature curriculums.   Publications   Elliott, V., Nelson-Addy, L., Chantiluke, R. & Courtney, M. (2021) Lit in Colour Diversity in Literature in English Schools. London: Penguin & Runnymede Trust   Chantiluke.R, Kwoba.B, Nkopo.A, Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire (London: Zed Books), 2018

Advances in AI and Machine translation are making headlines.  But we still need human linguists, translators and interpreters (TI).  Adapting language and TI education to this technological shift is crucial to avoid deepening the current ‘language crisis’. Part of that adaptation will depend on undergraduate language teachers who teach at the boundary between humanities and TI.  Adopting a cross-national mixed methods approach, my inquiry asks: How can teacher voices and cross-disciplinary knowledge contribute to the creation of innovative tools for language teacher development with and for TI in a post-AI era?   Publications: (Based on MSc module assignment ‘Designing and communicating research’ (DCR))   Published in: The Linguist (summer edition), CIOL magazine. “Is research working? Better use and understanding of translation are key to improving global research” https://www.ciol.org.uk/sites/default/files/TheLinguistSummer24-website.pdf   Book translation: one of a series of 4 books in English on ‘Shanghai Culture’. Title: Shanghai Women, Author: MA Shanglong, Translator: Celine Garbutt. Publisher: Shanghai University Press ISBN 978 – 7 – 5671 – 4647 – 1

I work as a senior educator developer specialising in inclusive education teaching and learning practice. My participatory neurodivergent-led research project examines the phenomenology of neurodivergent learner shame. It aims to unpick the messages that neurodivergent young people starting university have internalised about their ability to succeed in education, reflect on how stigmatised academic identities are managed, and think about what educators can do to nurture a healthier academic identity. I am working with Tourette’s Action charity and University of Exeter’s Neurodivergent and Disabled Students’ Society on creative ways to engage a wider variety of neurodivergent people in participatory research.

In my research, I plan to develop a methodology for the co-creation of Climate Change Education (CCE) through collaboration between young climate activists (YCAs) and in-service teachers. For me CCE is not a topic which should eb left to Science or Geography – I am interested in every aspect of climate change, in particular issues of climate justice and how they intersect with other issues of epistemic justice. I am heavily influenced by critical theory and ideas from critical pedagogy, from thinkers such as Paolo Freire. In my project, teachers and young people will be positioned as co-creators of pedagogy, with the young people bringing the specialist knowledge of climate justice, as well as their own experience and understanding of pedagogy. The research will examine both the experiences of the participants in this collaborative, youth-led process of curriculum making in relation to CCE, as well as the outcomes of that process in the form of novel pedagogical approaches.

My research aims to draw on ideas from anthropology and education to explore the possibility of using drama as an art-based pedagogy in early childhood education among marginalized communities. I would be conducting an ethnographic research using visual and other methods on the early years classroom practice and children’s experiences in the selected state preschools of India. In the next stage, by working with an NGO, a drama based pedagogical intervention will be facilitated and developed in collaboration with the early year education teachers. In the final phase I intend to explore the impact of the intervention.