All welcome.

Please contact Jacqui Wootton, the Events Co-ordinator j.wootton@bham.ac.uk if you wish to attend any of these seminars.

Venue (unless otherwise noted): G39, School of Education, University of Birmingham, Pritchatts Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15  2TT. Edgbaston Campus map (PDF, 397KB, opens in new window)

Time: To be held at 2 p.m. unless otherwise specified.

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Seminar dates

17th March 2010

A Modest Proposal for the Increase of Educational Imagination in Education Research

Frederick Erickson, UCLA, USA.

Biographical details:

Professor Frederick Erickson, is Professor of Social Research Methodology at UCLA, USA. His research interests include organization and conduct of face to face interaction, sociolinguistic discourse analysis, ethnographic research methods, study of social interaction as a learning environment, anthropology of education. His book Talk and Social Theory: Ecologies of Speaking and Listening in Everyday Life (Polity Press) won an Outstanding Book Award.  Through the lens of a "more practical theory of practices in talk," which he developed, Professor Erickson analyzed four studies of talk to illustrate how individuals are both constrained by and afforded opportunities in different social and institutional settings. His book contributes to the understanding of social interaction.

28th April 2010

Uncovering uncomfortable 'truths': Social class and education.

Diane Reay, University of Cambridge

Biographical details:

Diane Reay is Professor of Education at Cambridge University. She is a sociologist working in the area of education but is also interested in broader issues of the relationship between the self and society, the affective and the material. Her priority has been to engage in research with a strong social justice agenda that addresses social inequalities of all kinds.

Her research has a strong theoretical focus and she is particularly interested in developing theorisations of social class and the ways in which it is mediated by gender and ethnicity. This has resulted in researching areas as diverse as boys' underachievement, Black supplementary schooling, higher education access, female management in schools, and pupil peer group cultures.

Research projects include a study of children's relationships to space and place in the city, a project on parental involvement in education and research which develops Pierre Bourdieu's conceptual framework in order to understand gendered and racialised class processes. Recently completed ESRC-funded projects include ones on children's transitions to secondary schooling , choice of higher education, and students' identities and participation as learners. She is currently directing an ESRC project which examines white, middle class identities through an exploration of educational choice. Professor Reay has supervised PhD students across a wide range of areas including Jewish women teachers, psycho-analytic approaches to social class, pupil peer group cultures in primary schools and parental involvement in nurseries.

As well as being an executive editor of British Journal of Sociology of Education, she is on the editorial boards of Gender and Education, the Journal of Education Policy and Sociology.

19th May 2010

Meritocracy and private schooling in England.

Tony Edwards, Emeritus Professor, University of Newcastle

Biographical details:

Tony Edwards is Emeritus professor of Education at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He collaborated with Professor Geoff Whitty and Dr John Fitz in an ESRC-funded evaluation of the Assisted Places Scheme, and (with Geoff Whitty, Dr Sally Power and Dr Valerie Wigfall) in a follow up study (also ESRC funded) when they were in their mid 20s of pupils from independent, grammar and comprehensive schools involved in the earlier research.

Previous seminars

5th February 2010

Baker to Balls - 20 years of continuity, change and innovation in English Education

Barry Sheerman, M.P.

Biographical details:
Barry Sheerman has recently celebrated his 30th Anniversary as the Labour and Co-operative Member of Parliament for Huddersfield.

Chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee for Children, Schools and Families Committee from 2007and the Education and Skills Committee from 2001 - 2007, he has extensive experience in educational issues and has played a key role in education policy and debates.

His interests also include economic affairs, environmental sustainability and transport safety.

Mr Sheerman is an energetic social and political entrepreneur having initiated over 30 different social enterprises over the past 20 years. He is currently actively involved in Policy Connect (which runs a number of policy forums and parliamentary groups), the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety, Urban Mines (an environmental charity), and the John Clare Education and Environment Trust, all of which he helped establish.

20th January 2010

Reflections on Educational Research in the UK based on findings and implications of RAE2008 and REF

Margaret Brown, King’s College London.

Biographical details:

Professor Margaret Brown’s main research interest over the last thirty years has been learning and progression in mathematics, focusing on number and number operations, but also including other areas of the curriculum. This has developed to include assessment (formative and summative), international surveys, the nature of mathematical attainment, effective teaching, attitudes and experiences of pupils and students, and other factors affecting student attainment. This has included all phases of education, primary and secondary education, 16-19, university mathematics and adult basic education. Professor Brown’s work has had considerable impact on national policy, especially curriculum and assessment, and on teaching materials.

25th November 2009

The Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training: the problems faced and solutions proposed

Richard Pring, University of Oxford.

Biographical details:

Professor Richard Pring, PhL (Gregorian, Rome), BA (UCL), PhD (London), Hon DLlit (Kent) retired after 14 years as Director of the Department of Education at Oxford in May 2003. He is currently Lead Director of the Nuffield Review 14-19 Educational Studies. This is a £1,000,000 six year project, funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

In addition to the Nuffield Review he is also currently working on research projects with the University of Birmingham, QCA (Qualifications and Curriculum Authority) funded, to establish a data base of schools for assessing the impact of policy 14-19, and with the TLRP (Teaching and Learning Research Programme): Epistemological base for Educational Research, with Dr Alis Oancea.

Since retiring he has completed the following research projects: the evaluation of the Oxford Bursary Scheme with John Fox, a £125,000 project funded from Atlantic Philanthropies, and an evaluation of quality assurance in 11 Arab Universities, with a grant funding of £12,000 from the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme).