Speakers
Keynote Addresses
Wednesday 5 September
L1 Logan Hall 17.00 – 18.00
Herbert W Marsh, University of Oxford
Herb Marsh is currently Professorship of Educational Studies at Oxford University. Prior to that he was Research Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Western Sydney where he served as Dean of Graduate Research Studies (1996-2000) and Pro-Vice-Chancellor (1995-96, 1997) and was awarded the inaugural Doctorate of Science, the inaugural Research Award, and the inaugural Vice Chancellor’s award for PhD Supervision. Herb has published widely with more than 300 articles in more than 70 different journals, 55 chapters, 13 monographs, and 350 conference papers. He is recognized as the most productive educational psychologist in the world, as one of the top 10 international researchers in Higher Education and in Social Psychology, and as the 11th most productive researcher in the world across all disciplines of psychology. In addition he founded and directed the Self-concept Enhancement and Learning Facilitation (SELF) Research Centre (http://self.uws.edu.au/).
Self-Concept: Theory, Measurement and Multi-method Quantitative Research into Practice
Herb’s keynote address is entitled “Self- Concept: Theory, Measurement and Multi-method Quantitative Research into Practice”. He will give an overview of his research on self concepts in which he addresses diverse theoretical and methodological issues with practical implications for research, policy and practice. A number of specific questions will be addressed such as: ‘Does positive self-concept “cause” better school performance?’ and ‘Are multiple dimensions of self-concepts more distinct than multiple intelligences?’
The research demonstrates the importance of a multi-method quantitative research programme to address issues of relevance to educational policy and practice. The presentation starts from the premise that “Self-concept” enhancement is a major goal in diverse educational settings. It is a multi-dimensional hierarchical construct with highly differentiated components such as academic, social, physical and emotional self-concepts as well as global self-esteem. Self-concept is also an important mediating factor that facilitates the attainment of other desirable outcomes. In education, for example, a positive academic self-concept is both a highly desirable goal and a means for facilitating subsequent academic accomplishments. However, the benefits of feeling positively about oneself on one’s choice, planning, persistence and subsequent accomplishments transcend traditional disciplinary and cultural barriers. In this regard, self-concept enhancement is a key component in overcoming diverse types of social and educational disadvantage
Thursday 6 September
L1 Logan Hall 11.00 – 12.30
Welcome
Lord Andrew Adonis, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (2007)
As Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, Lord Adonis’s particular focus is raising standards in primary schools, the school curriculum, SEN, disability and the delivery of the Academies and Trusts programme as well as the London Challenge. His portfolio includes handling all Departmental business in the Lords, including DfES legislation.
Lord Adonis is a former journalist with the Financial Times and the Observer. He was previously education and constitution policy adviser at No.10 and during Tony Blair’s leadership led the work of the Policy Unit.
Presidential Address
Pamela Munn, University of Edinburgh
Pamela Munn is Dean of the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh. Originally a history teacher in London, her first research post was at the University of Stirling before moving to the University of York. She returned to Scotland to join the Scottish Council for Research in Education in the mid 1980s and then took up a Chair in Curriculum Research at Moray House in 1994. Pamela’s main areas of research interest are in discipline in schools and related areas of bullying and exclusion. She is also interested more generally in the relationship between research, policy and practice and she has been active in promoting a research dimension to policy and practice development in Scotland. She chaired the national review group on education for citizenship, and was a member of committees reviewing initial teacher education, behaviour in schools and the 3-18 curriculum. She is currently chair of the management and executive committees of the Applied Educational Research Scheme in Scotland, a five-year, £2million scheme, funded jointly by the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Funding Council to build research capacity and to develop ways of engaging a wide constituency of users of educational research in the research process. Pamela was elected onto BERA Council in 2005 and, as President elect, her priorities are to extend BERA’s influence in the areas of, i) promoting the connections between research, policy and practice, ii) research capacity building and iii) the scope for home-international comparisons in education afforded by the British Educational Research Association.
Friday 7 September
L1 Logan Hall 11.00 – 12.00
Stephen J Ball, Institute of Education, University of London
Stephen J Ball is Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London. Prior to the Institute he worked at the University of Sussex and King’s College London. His main work is in the field of 'policy sociology'; the use of sociological theories and methods to analyse policy processes and outcomes. His specific research interests focus upon the effects and consequences of the education market in a variety of respects including; the impact of competition on provider behaviour; the class strategies of educational choosers; the participation of private capital in education services; and the impact of 'performativity' on academic and social life. A collection of his major papers Education Policy and Social Class was published by Routledge in 2006 and Education plc in 2007 He currently holds an ESRC Fellowship and is researching the privatization of education, the education policy process and Working Class childcare ‘choices’ (with Carol Vincent). He is Editor of the Journal of Education Policy and is a Fellow of the British Academy.
Privatizing Education, Privatizing Education Policy, Privatizing Educational Research
Drawing on research this address will seek to demonstrate the extent to which private companies and consultants are now thoroughly embedded in education and education policy. Not simply delivering services and delivering policy but working at the very heart of the policy process. Through advice, lobbying, research, consultancies and other forms of influence the private sector are now key agents in the education policy community – but the policy-work they do is often hardly visible and often goes unacknowledged. These companies and individual consultants bring their private sector discourses to bear upon policy and upon educational problems. They also act in ways which legitimate and extend their financial interests in the work of the public services. I will suggest that these ‘moves’ within policy are part of a more general re-working of the modalities of the state and I will argue for the need for more research and an open public debate about the extent and implications of these processes of privatization.
Saturday 8 September
Logan Hall 11.00 – 12.00
Susan Groundwater-Smith, University of Sydney
Susan Groundwater-Smith is currently Honorary Professor of Education at the University of Sydney where she is Director of the Centre for Practitioner Research. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor of Education at a number of Australian Universities, including the University of Technology, Sydney; The University of Western Sydney and Griffith University in Queensland. Most recently she has fulfilled that role at Liverpool Hope University in the United Kingdom. These various appointments have given her many opportunities to experience a range and variety of teacher education programmes including both initial teacher education and ongoing teacher professional development.
She is one of two international editors of the Education Action Research Journal and has worked in the field of practitioner research for the past three decades. She has co-authored a number of initial teacher education texts and contributed chapters to books with a focus on action inquiry. She has an abiding interest in the ethics of practitioner research, in particular the voice of students.
Practitioner Researchers: Today's children of Mother Courage
Bertolt Brecht sought the answer to Lenin's question "Wie und was soll man lernen?" (How and what should we learn?). Academic researchers also need to find some answers to this question in relation to practitioner research - how and what can we learn from those who investigate their own practice in the field. Is it, and can it be, truly transformational? Practitioner research requires courage, courage to confront social problems rather than escape them. This is particularly challenging for today's teachers who work within the established order of the various education systems who employ them. It requires rational reflection and critical insight in contexts that are often muddied by short term pragmatic policies. Furthermore, we need to ask ourselves can practitioner research be truly reflexive, taking account of the social and historical circumstances that spawned those policies. This presentation will explore recent initiatives in practitioner research in education in England, Europe and Australia and seek to identify what is to be learned that can support the academy in more deeply informing its own knowledge base with respect to practice.