Meet The Education Researcher

Antero Garcia (Stanford University) talks about his work in the area of media education and civics. We start by talking about the future of civics education in US schooling. We also explore the roles that games and gaming can play in reimagining (and disrupting) what goes on in the classroom. From Trump to Twitch to Paulo Freire in 15 minutes!

“So you’re a science educator? That’s so radical!’ Sara Tolbert (University of Canterbury) is committed to challenging the politics and power that underpin science education. Sara talks about her work in supporting Indigenous knowledge and place-based learning in school, feminist approaches to teaching as care-work, and what we can learn from the classroom ritual of dissecting animals. We also reflect on being a scholar/activist in times of culture wars and growing ‘anti-woke’ sentiment.

“We cannot understand education policy and power in education only by looking at the nation state”. Dr. Jason Beech has just joined Monash University’s Faculty of Education. He talks about the importance of space and networks in comparative education, his work on ‘Global Middle Class’ families and ‘idiosyncratic’ policy enactment, and the differences he expects to see moving from research in Argentina to research in Australia.

Professor Nathalie Sinclair (Simon Fraser University) is a leading philosopher whose work strives to change the way we think about learning and teaching maths. In this interview Nathalie talks about the importance of gestures when explaining mathematical concepts, why students should be encouraged to count on their fingers, and why there is room for aesthetics, values and romance when thinking about how to address mathematical problems.

Many people expect neuroscience to change our understanding of education. Michael Thomas (Birkbeck University) is director of the Centre for Educational Neuroscience in London. In this episode, Michael talks about what educators need to know about how the brain works, avoiding ‘disciplinary wars’ between psychology & neuroscience, and the need to balance a ‘medical model’ of learning with societal concerns about education.

Keri Facer (University of Bristol) is a leading thinker in the area of education futures, and has just completed a term as visiting Zennström Professor of Climate Change Leadership at Uppsala University. We talk about the diverse ways that higher education can respond to the uncertainties arising from climate change – from basic reduction of campus carbon footprints to more complex restructuring processes that might support a large-scale transition to sustainable livelihoods and new ways of living.

Pat Thomson (University of Nottingham) is renowned for her public work in demystifying academic writing, career-building, and other practical aspects of researcher education. We talk about the benefits of ‘angry’ scholarship, the intimacies of co-authoring, and how to navigate the pressure of H-scores, KPIs and other performance metrics.

Rikke Toft Nørgård (Aarhus University) brings together educational philosophy with design practices and futures thinking. We talk about Rikke’s ‘University of We’ and ‘Playful University’ projects, and discuss the ways that design thinking can play a role in establishing more ethical universities.

“In times of crisis we need to be creative” Simone Eringfeld (Cambridge University) is part of a new generation of education researchers beginning to re-imagine what it might mean to work in higher education. We talk about Simone’s recent ‘Quaran-chats’ project documenting higher education lockdown experiences, Cambridge’s new ‘Post Pandemic University’ initiative, and the pros and cons of beginning an academic career in the 2020s.

“Sociology of education has devoted itself to saving, reforming, improving, perfecting the school … I now believe that it is a doomed enterprise. The school is an irredeemable institution”. Prof. Stephen Ball (IOE London) is one of the world’s most eminent education researchers – a leading voice in the sociology of education, and a founding name in the area of policy sociology. We talk about everything from Foucault to the state of pandemic education. We also discus Stephen’s recent provocative writing on the need for education researchers to ‘break their addiction’ to trying to improve schools and schooling.