Dr Claire Lee

PhD (Education), MSc (Educational Research), PGCE, BA

Early Career Research Fellow

Department of Psychology, Health and Professional Development

Claire Lee

Role

I am an education researcher with an interest in how children make sense of the world and develop a sense of self. My research is committed to creating spaces for dialogue with children and using arts-based and multimodal methods to explore the things that matter to them. 

Completed in 2020, my PhD thesis Not 'just a school day': An arts-based dialogic inquiry into the learning lives of children from armed forces families in a UK primary school is an account of a 14-month arts-based project conducted in a primary school in England with a group of children aged 8-11 with parents serving in the UK armed forces. 

As well as conducting research, my role at Oxford Brookes is to support the Children and Young People Research, Innovation and Knowledge Exchange Network.

Areas of expertise

  • Children's literacy practices;
  • Children with a parent/parents serving in the UK armed forces;
  • Primary school teaching, curriculum, power and classroom relationships and how these intersect with policy;
  • Dialogism and children's voice;
  • Participatory research using multimodal and arts-based ethnographic methods with children.

Research

I conduct research that creates spaces for dialogue with children, using arts-based and participatory ethnographic methods. I am interested in:

  • how children make sense of the world and develop a sense of self, particularly in educational settings;
  • curriculum, power and classroom relationships;
  • children's literacies and languages, wellbeing, hope and activism.

Research grants and awards

  • 2016-2019: Economic and Social Research Council Doctoral studentship 

Research projects

Current research projects:

  • Supporting Researchful Practice in Early Years settings in Covid Times: ESRC Impact Acceleration Award funded project in collaboration with Dr Frances Giampapa at the School of Education, University of Bristol

Previous research:

  • "Researchful" Practice in the Early Years, a pilot project investigating the potential impact of a qualitative research toolkit for early years practitioners
  • Has COVID widened the digital divide? With Bristol Digital Futures Institute
  • Impacts on students' mental health, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020): a qualitative project, part of which investigated primary school children's and parents' experiences of enforced home education during the first lockdown in England. See BERA blogpost August 2020
  • Doctoral research (2016-2020): Not "just another school day": an arts-based dialogic inquiry into the learning lives of children from armed forces families in a UK primary school. See thesis under Publications. Executive summary
  • MSc educational research (2014-15): a short arts-based inquiry into the experiences and needs of a group of children from armed forces families in a UK primary school

Groups

Publications

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Professional information

Memberships of professional bodies

  • Member of British Educational Research Association (BERA)
  • Member of UK Literacy Association (UKLA)

Further details

Other experience

Before completing an ESRC-funded PhD in 2020, I was a primary school teacher for many years with subject specialisms in literacy and music.