Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole
BSc(Hons) Open (Psych), MA (Hons), PGCE, PhD
School of Education
Chair in Education
Director of Research and Innovation
+44 114 222 8101
Full contact details
School of Education
Edgar Allen House
241 Glossop Rd
Sheffield
S10 2GW
- Research interests
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Katherine’s research is located in the field of critical disability studies. Critical disability studies aim to understand and challenge exclusionary and oppressive practices associated with disablism and consider the ways these intersect with other forms of marginalisation including hetero/sexism, racism, poverty and imperialism.
Much of her research has been carried out alongside disabled children and young people and their families and allies, and more recently, with people labelled with learning disabilities in a time of austerity.
She is also interested in the developing field of critical autism studies that seek to explore the ways in autism is produced and consumed in contemporary society and the effects this has on the lives of people who attract the label.
Her research draws on qualitative methods including narrative, arts-based methods and participatory approaches.
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Life, Death, Disability and the Human: Living Life to the Fullest, Economic and Social Research Council (ES/P001041/1) Dan Goodley (The University of Sheffield); Kirsty Liddiard; Katherine Runswick-Cole, The University of Sheffield (April, 2017 – April 2020).
- This project uses arts-based methods to explore the hopes, dreams and aspirations of children and young people who are described as having life-limiting conditions.
- This project uses arts-based methods to explore the hopes, dreams and aspirations of children and young people who are described as having life-limiting conditions.
- Enacting Critical Disability Communities in Education, Social Science and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC) Patty Douglas, University of Guelph (Canada); Carla Rice, University of Guelph (Canada); Katherine Runswick-Cole; Estee Klar, York University (Canada); Anne McGuire, University of Toronto (Canada); Gillian Parekh, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Canada) (June, 2016-2018).
- This project uses digital story-telling methods to explore meaning making in relation to ‘autism’ and ‘inclusion’
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The meaning(s) of value: Measuring the Impact of Creative Activities upon children and young people with learning disabilities, BA/Leverhulme Small Research Grants Katherine Runswick-Cole,. (May, 2016 – May, 2017).
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This project explores the meanings of the value of art-based education for children with learning disabilities.
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Big Society? Disabled People with Learning Disabilities and Civil Society, Economic and Social Research Council (June, 2013-June 2015) Goodley (Sheffield);Lawthom (MMU); Brandon (Northumbria) Johnson (Bristol); Katherine Runswick-Cole (June, 2013 – June, 2015)
- This project works alongside people with learning disabilities to examine how their lives have been affected by on-going austerity in England.
- This project works alongside people with learning disabilities to examine how their lives have been affected by on-going austerity in England.
- Does Every Child Matter, post-Blair? The interconnections of disabled childhoods, Economic and Social Research Council (September, 2010 – Jan, 2012) PI: Goodley (MMU) Research Associate: Katherine Runswick-Cole (£255,000).
- This project explored the impact of the changes in policy for children in health, education and social care during the New Labour government.
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- Publications
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Journal articles
- Mad Mothering. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies: Volume 15, Issue 1, 15(1), 39-56. View this article in WRRO
- Plans that work: improving employment outcomes for young people with learning disabilities. British Journal of Special Education. View this article in WRRO
- Liminal Still? Un-mothering disabled children. Disability & Society. View this article in WRRO
- The Doing and Undoing of the “Autistic Child”: Cutting Together and Apart Interview-Based Empirical Materials. Qualitative Inquiry, 24(6), 390-402. View this article in WRRO
- Feeling disability: Theories of Affect and Critical Disability Studies. Disability & Society, 33(2), 197-217. View this article in WRRO
- Precarious lives and resistant possibilities: the labour of people with learning disabilities in times of austerity. Disability and Society, 32(2), 160-175. View this article in WRRO
- The DisHuman child. Discourse, 37(5), 770-784. View this article in WRRO
- The trouble with ‘hard working families’. Community, Work & Family, 19(2), 257-260.
- ‘Some people are not allowed to love’: intimate citizenship in the lives of people labelled with intellectual disabilities. Disability and Society, 31(1), 131-135. View this article in WRRO
- Becoming dishuman: thinking about the human through dis/ability. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(1), 1-15. View this article in WRRO
- Big Society? Disabled people with the label of learning disabilities and the queer(y)ing of civil society. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 17(1), 1-13. View this article in WRRO
- Critical psychologies of disability: boundaries, borders and bodies in the lives of disabled children. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 20(1), 51-63. View this article in WRRO
- DisPovertyPorn:Benefits Streetand the dis/ability paradox. Disability & Society, 30(4), 645-649.
- Disabled children’s childhood studies: a distinct approach?. Disability & Society, 29(10), 1617-1630.
- ‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times. Disability & Society, 29(7), 1117-1129.
- Dis/ability and austerity: beyond work and slow death. Disability & Society, 29(6), 980-984. View this article in WRRO
- Watermeyer, B. Towards a Contextual Psychology of Disablism. Abingdon: Routledge, 2013. 254pp £85.00 (hbk) 978-0-415-68160-5 £24.95 (pbk) 978-1-13-878121-4. Sociology of Health & Illness, 36(3), 478-479.
- ‘They never pass me the ball’: exposing ableism through the leisure experiences of disabled children, young people and their families. Children's Geographies, 11(3), 311-325.
- The body as disability and possability: theorizing the ‘leaking, lacking and excessive’ bodies of disabled children. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 15(1), 1-19.
- Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 67-78.
- Reading Rosie: The postmodern disabled child. Educational and Child Psychology, 29(2), 53-66.
- Something in the Air?Creativity, culture and community. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 16(1), 75-91.
- Problematising policy: conceptions of ‘child’, ‘disabled’ and ‘parents’ in social policy in England. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(1), 71-85.
- The violence of disablism. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(4), 602-617. View this article in WRRO
- Emancipating play: dis/abled children, development and deconstruction. Disability & Society, 25(4), 499-512.
- Living with dying and disabilism: death and disabled children. Disability & Society, 25(7), 813-826.
- Needs or rights? A challenge to the discourse of special education. British Journal of Special Education, 36(4), 198-203.
- Problematising parent–professional partnerships in education. Disability & Society, 23(6), 637-647.
- Repositioning mothers: mothers, disabled children and disability studies. Disability & Society, 23(3), 199-210.
- ‘The Tribunal was the most stressful thing: more stressful than my son’s diagnosis or behaviour’: the experiences of families who go to the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (SENDisT). Disability & Society, 22(3), 315-328.
- The Power Threat Meaning Framework: Development of a document for use in intellectual disabilities services. The Bulletin of the Faculty for People with Intellectual Disabilities.
- RESEARCH SECTION: Between a rock and a hard place: parents' attitudes to the inclusion of children with special educational needs in mainstream and special schools. British Journal of Special Education, 35(3), 173-180.
- Key Concerns for Critical Disability Studies in Covid-19 Times. International Journal of Disability and Social Justice.
- Mad Mothering. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies: Volume 15, Issue 1, 15(1), 39-56. View this article in WRRO
- Teaching interests
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Katherine teaches on the BA Education, Culture and Childhood; the MA Education, the MA Education and Psychology and the MSc Education and Psychology (Conversion) programmes as well as supervising students on the EdD and PhD programmes. She particularly welcomes doctoral supervisions in the areas of: critical disability studies; inclusive education and disabled children's childhood studies.
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Katherine is a Visiting Research Fellow at London Southbank University.
- She is a member of Learning Disability England Academics