My academic background is as a historian, and much of my research falls within the history of education and childhood. I have focused predominantly on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, examining moral education and citizenship, and local studies of education and welfare. My publications cover both my funded research and historical projects, and a monograph - Morality and Citizenship in English Schools. Secular Approaches, 1897-1944 was published by Palgrave Macmillan earlier in 2017. Current research projects focus on young people, war and peace, both historically through research into organisations that promoted peace among young people from the 1920s to the 1960s, and in the present day through research into remembrance in schools.
Research group membership
I served on the executive committee of the
History of Education Society from 2003 to 2010, and from 2007 to end of 2013 co-edited the
History of Education Researcher. I joined the editorial board of
History of Education in 2012, and from January 2014 have been one of a team of three editors of
History of Education. I am also a member of the
International Standing Conference for the History of Education, the
British Educational ResearchAssociation, the
Social History Society.
Research grants and awards
Funded research and consultancy projects
- 2004-06: Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training (funded by the Nuffield Foundation).
- 2006-07: The Student Learning Experience in Higher Education (funded by the Higher Education Academy).
- 2007-08: 14-19 education and training: establishing a baseline of evidence (funded by the Qualifications and Curriculum Development Authority)
Research projects
Current research projects:
- Remembrance in Schools (2013-19). I am working with colleagues in the School of Education and at Brunel University as part of a multi-disciplinary team investigating remembrance events on or around 11 November in schools in Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire. To date we have conducted two online surveys and interviews with teachers, and are now embarking on observations of remembrance events, and questionnaires with pupils to run in November 2017 and 2018.
- Peaceful Youth. I am in the early stages of a new monograph project which will examine - through documentary reserach and oral histories - organisations that promoted peace among young people from the 1920s to the 1960s.