Here in the School of Education we value research that has an impact. We believe it is important to work in ways that make a difference to people’s lives and work and to theory, practice, and society. Rooted in local, regional, national and international contexts, our research centres focus on critical educational psychology, higher education, early childhood education and literacies.
An Inclusive Community
We embrace diverse approaches to research and theory. We encourage collaborative involvement with professional groups, community projects and many more.
The Centre for Critical Psychology and Education is distinctive in its critical approach to studying education, psychology, educational psychology, disability and mental health. We are especially committed to problematising ‘education’, ‘disability’ and ‘psychology’ which are all too often taken as objective givens. We engage through collaborative thinking, writing and activism. We are committed to airing and debating different, sometimes competing, perspectives.
The Centre for Research in Early Childhood Education draws on a range of theoretical and methodological perspectives, with common concerns regarding social justice, a commitment to criticality, and a desire to drive methodological innovation. This drive is evident in our commitment to research that embraces innovative approaches to co-production, engaging children and young people in and with research, visual and arts-based methods, and ethically responsive research.
The Centre for the Study of Higher Education undertakes conceptual, empirical, historical and policy research in the field of higher education, nationally and internationally. Higher education is defined broadly to encompass all the main settings of tertiary education, including colleges, universities, the workplace and the virtual world. We lead one of the programme areas in the ESRC Centre for Global Higher Education dedicated to the study of higher education and its future.
The Centre for the Study of Literacies is designed to support and enable research that draws on a perspective that literacy practices are embedded within everyday life. The Centre for the Study of Literacies engages with interdisciplinary research to look at literacy in life and learning contexts: we address issues such as post-colonialism, diaspora identities, migration and new emerging identities within contemporary society in relation to texts, practices and communication.
Global Childhoods, Education & Communities Network
An interdisciplinary network of scholars conducting world-leading and high impact research on inclusive and equitable quality education and community life in a global perspective. Our approach is informed by a broad understanding of education and upbringing, encompassing: literacy; new media and technologies; gender, poverty and inequality; well-being and disability as well as peace and justice. Our research explores human development across the life span, from early years to adult education, in a variety of cultural and community settings and geographical regions.
