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Dr Carol Azumah Dennis

Dr Carol Azumah Dennis

Profile summary

  • Central Academic Staff
  • Senior Lecturer Education Leadership and Management
  • Faculty of Wellbeing, Education & Language Studies
  • School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport
  • Education
  • azumah.dennis

Professional biography

I have worked in Higher Education since 2010, first at the University of Hull where I was employed initially as a Lecturer in Education: Programme Director for Post-16 Teacher Education and later as Programme Director for Postgraduate Taught provision. I have worked for the Open University as a Senior Lecturer: Education, Leadership and Management since 2017. I am a Senior Fellow of the HEA.

Prior to working in Higher Education, I had worked for a number of years in Further Education Colleges where I was responsible for teaching, training and managing adult basic skills. I completed my EdD at the UCL, Institute of Education in 2010, with a thesis exploring leading and managing quality in adult literacies provision. 

 

Research interests

I have published in a wide range of peer reviewed international journals including Educational Management Administration & Leadership, International Journal of Lifelong Education and Research in Post Compulsory Education.

My research interests centre around three areas of specialization:

  • Post-16 policy, professionalism and practice
  • Leading and managing quality in vocational education
  • Teacher education, critical pedagogy, ethics and social justice

Research Projects:

2016  Principal Investigator, University Council for the Education of Teachers, Adult Learners at Cape Coast University, Ghana

2014 to 2016 Principal Investigator, Further Education Trust for Leadership, Leadership and Ethics in Further Education 

Selected Pubications

  • Dennis, C. A. (in press) Further Education, Leadership and Ethical Action: Thinking with Hannah Arendt, Educational Management Administration & Leadership
  • Dennis, C. A. (in press) Strategic Myths and Machiavellian Indulgences, The Prince: invited book chapter
  • Dennis, C. A. (2016) The ‘even more’ quality, Post Compulsory Teacher Educators: Connecting Professionals, 8: invited book chapter
  • Dennis, C. A. (2016) Further education colleges and leadership: Checking the ethical pulse. London Review of Education, 14(1), 116-130.
  • Dennis, C.A. (2015) Blogging as public pedagogy: creating alternative educational futures. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 34(3), 284-299.
  • Dennis, C. A. (2015). Locating post-16 professionalism: public spaces as dissenting spaces. Research in Post-Compulsory Education, 20(1), 64-77.
  • Dennis, C.A. (2014) Positioning further education and community colleges: Text, teachers and students as global discourse, Studies in the Education of Adults 46 (1), 91 - 107
  • Dennis, C.A. (2014) Quality: an ongoing conversation over time, Journal of Vocational Education & Training 64 (4), 511-527
  • Dennis, C.A. (2011) Measuring Quality: framing what we know, Literacy, 45 (3), 119-125
  • Dennis, C. A. (2010) Is the professionalisation of adult basic skills teaching possible, desirable or inevitable? Literacy and Numeracy Studies: an international journal, Vol 18 (2)
  • Dennis, C. A. (2010) Quality and Worthwhile Professional Knowledge, Journal of Research and Practice in Adult Literacy Issue: 70

Research Group

 

 

Teaching interests

My research interests are in postgraduate education. I have taught research methods on both an MA (Masters) and EdD (Professional Doctorate) programme. At the OU I chair two MA modules in Educational Leadership and Management. One module focusses on strategy; the other is concerned with agency, professional learning and change. I am also an EdD Co-ordinator for students on the Leadership and management pathway.

I have supervised PhD students and EdD students in diverse areas including

  • Neo-colonial tensions and identity conflict amongst international students – completed PhD 2015
  • Teenage pregnancy and motherhood as a positive turning point – completed PhD 2015
  • Marketization of Higher Education
  • Reflective practice as capacity building for leaders in Higher education
  • Academic Writing amongst HE students
  • Human Rights Education in Thailand secondary schools