Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole

BSc(Hons) Open (Psych), MA (Hons), PGCE, PhD

School of Education

Chair in Education

Photograph of Dr Katherine Runswick-Cole

k.runswick-cole@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 8101

The Wave

Full contact details

Professor Katherine Runswick-Cole
School of Education
The Wave
2 Whitham Road
Sheffield
S10 2AH

Research interests

Katherine has extensive experience of working alongside children, young people and adults with learning disabilities, their families and allies in research. She has published widely in the areas of: critical disability studies; disabled children's childhood studies; inclusive education and care. She is the mother of two adult children, one of whom has the label of learning disability.

Current projects

Tired of Spinning Plates? An exploration of the mental health of older carers/adults of people with learning disabilities (NIHR, HSDR) 1st October, 2022 - 31st December, 2024: a coproduced project with family carers of people with learning disabilities, the project is exploring the meanings of mental health and care, and of access services and support;
Humanising Healthcare in the lives of people with learning disabilities (ESRC Standard Grant) (September, 2022 - August 2025): a co-produced research project dedicated to finding and sharing healthcare practices that enhance the lives of people with learning disabilities;
Medication and my mental health: mental health medications in the lives of people with learning disabilities (NIHR, RfPB: Mental Health in the North) (February, 2022- March, 2024): a co-produced project about the use of mental health medications in the lives of people with learning disabilities;
IPS beyond SMI (NIHR) (January, 2022- September, 2023): a project exploring the potential of Individual Placement and Support (IPS) and Supported Employment to remove the barriers to work;
What about me? People with learning disabilities on the margins of social care (NIHR, RfSC) (April, 2023 - February, 2025): a coproduced project exploring access to support for people with learning disabilities on the margins of social care.
Building towards a vision of Work-Health Expert Research Collaboration (WHERC) (NIHR) (October, 2023-June, 2024)
Reigniting debate and stimulating a momentum for change: the role of research findings in engaging policy makers with current priorities for people with a learning disability (SSCR, NIHR) (October, 2023 - March, 2024)

Recent projects

Life, Death, Disability and the Human: Living Life to the Fullest, Economic and Social Research Council (April, 2017 – April 2020).

Enacting Critical Disability Communities in Education, Social Science and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC) (June, 2016- June 2018)

Publications

Journal articles

Douglas P, Runswick-Cole K, Ryan S & Fogg P (2021) Mad Mothering. Journal of Literary & Cultural Disability Studies: Volume 15, Issue 1, 15(1), 39-56. View this article in WRRO
Runswick-Cole K (2019) Plans that work: improving employment outcomes for young people with learning disabilities. British Journal of Special Education. View this article in WRRO
Runswick-Cole K & Ryan S (2019) Liminal Still? Un-mothering disabled children. Disability & Society. View this article in WRRO
Frigerio A, Benozzo A, Holmes R & Runswick-Cole K (2018) 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
Goodley D (2018) Feeling disability: Theories of Affect and Critical Disability Studies. Disability & Society, 33(2), 197-217. View this article in WRRO
Bates K, Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2017) 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
Goodley D, Runswick-Cole K & Liddiard K (2016) The DisHuman child. Discourse, 37(5), 770-784. View this article in WRRO
Runswick-Cole K, Lawthom R & Goodley D (2016) The trouble with ‘hard working families’. Community, Work & Family, 19(2), 257-260.
Igagni E, Fudge Schormans A, Liddiard K & Runswick-Cole K (2016) ‘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
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2016) 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
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2015) 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
Goodley D & Runswick Cole K (2015) 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
Runswick-Cole K & Goodley D (2015) DisPovertyPorn:Benefits Streetand the dis/ability paradox. Disability & Society, 30(4), 645-649.
Curran T & Runswick-Cole K (2014) Disabled children’s childhood studies: a distinct approach?. Disability & Society, 29(10), 1617-1630.
Runswick-Cole K (2014) ‘Us’ and ‘them’: the limits and possibilities of a ‘politics of neurodiversity’ in neoliberal times. Disability & Society, 29(7), 1117-1129.
Goodley D, Lawthom R & Runswick-Cole K (2014) Dis/ability and austerity: beyond work and slow death. Disability & Society, 29(6), 980-984. View this article in WRRO
Runswick-Cole K (2014) 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.
Hodge N & Runswick-Cole K (2013) ‘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.
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2013) 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.
Runswick-Cole K & Goodley D (2013) Resilience: A Disability Studies and Community Psychology Approach. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 67-78.
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2012) Reading Rosie: The postmodern disabled child. Educational and Child Psychology, 29(2), 53-66.
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2011) Something in the Air?Creativity, culture and community. Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 16(1), 75-91.
Goodley D & Runswick‐Cole K (2011) Problematising policy: conceptions of ‘child’, ‘disabled’ and ‘parents’ in social policy in England. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 15(1), 71-85.
Goodley D & Runswick-Cole K (2011) The violence of disablism. Sociology of Health & Illness, 33(4), 602-617. View this article in WRRO
Goodley D & Runswick‐Cole K (2010) Emancipating play: dis/abled children, development and deconstruction. Disability & Society, 25(4), 499-512.
Runswick‐Cole K (2010) Living with dying and disabilism: death and disabled children. Disability & Society, 25(7), 813-826.
Runswick-Cole K & Hodge N (2009) Needs or rights? A challenge to the discourse of special education. British Journal of Special Education, 36(4), 198-203.
Hodge N & Runswick‐Cole K (2008) Problematising parent–professional partnerships in education. Disability & Society, 23(6), 637-647.
Ryan S & Runswick‐Cole K (2008) Repositioning mothers: mothers, disabled children and disability studies. Disability & Society, 23(3), 199-210.
Runswick‐Cole K (2007) ‘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.
Runswick-Cole K () Dis/entangling disability, mental health and the cultural politics of care. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research.
Collins G, Fyson R, Morgan G, Runswick-Cole K & Steel J () 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.
Runswick-Cole K () 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.
Goodley D, Lawthom R, Liddiard K & Runswick-Cole K () Key Concerns for Critical Disability Studies in Covid-19 Times. International Journal of Disability and Social Justice.

Teaching interests: 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 disability, education, health and care.

Professional activities and memberships: She is a trustee at Beyond Words - a charity working with people with lived experience to co-create word-free picture stories that help people understand and communicate their feelings, learn about new experiences and tell their own stories.