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Children's Research Centre > Staff Team

Staff Team

 

Mary Kellett - CRC Director

Mary is Professor of Childhood and Youth. Her primary research interest is empowering children as active researchers. She played a leading role in establishing the Children's Research Centre in 2003 after extensive pilot work exploring effective ways to teach children the knowledge and skills needed to undertake their own research studies. Before embarking on an academic career, Mary gained experience as a social worker and a primary school teacher. She sits on a number of national and international advisory panels and holds Adjunct Professorships in Europe and Australia.
 
Selected publications
Kellett, M. (2011) Empowering children and young people as researchers: overcoming barriers and building capacity, Child Indicators Research Journal, 4(2)
 
Kellett, M. (2011) Children's Perspectives on Integrated Services: every child matters in policy and practice, London: Palgrave Macmillan.

Kellett, M. (2010) Rethinking Children and Research: Attitudes in contemporary society, London: Continuum
 
Kellett, M. (2010) ‘Children’s experiences of education’ in Littleton, K., Staarman J.K. and Wood, C. (Eds) International Handbook of Educational Psychology, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.465-498
 
Kellett, M. (2010) 'Small shoes, big steps! Empowering children as researchers' American Journal of Community Psychology, 46, l/2.
 
Kellett, M., et al., (2010) WeCan2*: Exploring the implications of young people with learning disabilities engaging in their own research. European Journal of Special Needs Education, 25(1): 31-44.
 
Kellett, M. and Sahin, A.E. (Guest editors) (2009) 'Children as researchers: pedagogy and praxis' Eurasian Journal of Educational Research Special Issue for the 20th Anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, May Issue ISSN 1302-597X pp. v11-xii.
 
Kellett, M. (March 2005) How to Develop Children as Researchers: a step by step guide to the research process, London: Sage.
 

Martin Woodhead - CRC Academic

Martin Woodhead is Professor of Childhood Studies at The Open University. Martin's main research area relates to early childhood development, education and care, including policy studies and extensive international work. He has also carried out research on child labour, and children’s rights, including consultancy work for Save the Children, Council of Europe, OECD, UNICEF, UNESCO and the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Martin is also Chair of the International Advisory Board to the Open Society Foundation’s Early Childhood Program. Since 2005 he has been a member of the senior academic team directing 'Young Lives', a 15 year longitudinal study of child poverty in Ethiopia, India (Andhra Pradesh), Peru and Vietnam, based at University of Oxford, core funded by DFID (with the Open University as a research partner). Martin also co-directs the 'Early Childhood in Focus' project funded by Bernard van Leer Foundation, to produce accessible reviews on key topics relevant to policy and practice, with the series title 'Early Childhood in Focus'
 

Selected publications

2009 Wellbeing research in developing countries: Reviewing the role of qualitative methods. Social Indicators Research, Vol 90, No.1, pp 5-31 (with Camfield, L., and Crivello, G).
 
2009 How Can Children Tell Us About Their Wellbeing? Exploring the Potential of Participatory Research Approaches within Young Lives. Social Indicators Research Vol 90, No.1, pp 51-72 (with Camfield, L., and Crivello, G).
 
2009 ‘What’s the use of ‘well-being’ in contexts of child poverty? Approaches to research, monitoring and children’s participation” International Journal of Children’s Rights, Vol 17, No 1, pp 65-109 (with L.Camfield and N. Streuli).
 
2010 ‘Children’s well-being in developing countries: A conceptual and methodological review’, European Journal of Development Research, 22, 3, pp. 398-416 (with L.Camfield and N. Streuli).
 
2011 ‘Young people's experiences of personal advisors and the Connexions service’ Equality, Diversity and Inclusion: An International Journal, 30, 3, pp.168 – 182 (with K. Sheehy and R. Kumrai)
 
 

Dorothy Faulkner - CRC Academic

 Dorothy is a developmental psychologist and Senior Lecturer in the centre for Childhood Development and Learning. She has contributed to Open University courses in psychology and research methods and has recently chaired the production of the new Open University, Masters course, Understanding Children’s Development and Learning. She has a special interest in early years education and is a member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Early Years Education. Current research interests include children’s creative thinking and problem solving, the influence of peer relationships on collaborative learning and creative teaching and learning. She has been involved in school-based evaluations of the impact of creative professionals and creative practices on the educational and personal experiences of children and their teachers. She has contributed to several projects funded by Creative Partnerships and Arts Council England that have supported children and young people’s own investigations of creative teaching and learning in their schools. Dorothy also contributes to doctoral training and supervision and is currently Academic Coordinator of the Open University Research School.

Selected publications
 
Faulkner, D. & Coates, E. Eds. (2011) Exploring Children’s Creative Narratives, Abingdon: Routledge
 
Faulkner, D. (2011) Angels, tooth fairies and ghosts: thinking creatively in an early years classroom, in D. Faulkner & E. Coates (Eds.) Exploring Children’s Creative Narratives, Abingdon: Routledge
 
Murphy, S. & Faulkner, D. (2011) The relationship between bullying roles and children’s everyday dyadic interactions, Social Development, 20 (2), 272-293
 
Faulkner D. (2008) Research by children for children: how the Children’s Research Centre at the Open University supports children to become active researchers, in G. Jacquinot-Delaunay and E. Kourti (Eds.), Des jeunes et des medias en Europe: Nouvelles tendances de la recherche, Paris: L’Harmattan
 
Faulkner, D., Coates, E., Craft, A. & Duffy, B. (2006) Creativity and cultural innovation in early childhood education: Editorial review, International Journal of Early Years Education, 14(3), 191-199
 
Murphy, S. & Faulkner D. (2006) Gender differences in verbal communication between popular and unpopular children during an interactive task. Social Development, 15(1), 82-108

 

 

Sue Bucknall - CRC Consultant

Sue is a former Primary English specialist who has had many years of experience of working in schools, both with children with learning disabilities as a Teaching Assistant and as a mainstream primary teacher. While studying for her formal teaching qualification, she became particularly interested in research methodology and, more specifically, its application in investigating the relationship between recent curriculum innovations and the development of metacognitive skills in able children. Sue gained her PhD while working as a research associate at the Children's Research Centre. Her research interests are focussed on the ways in which children working at the centre engage with the research process as an intellectual activity and the effect this has on their critical thinking and metacognitive skills and also on how the empowering element of becoming an active researcher impacts on the children's self-development and learning.
 
 
 

Recent Publications

Bucknall, S. (2012) Children as Researchers in Primary Schools: choice, voice and participation. London: Routledge.
 
Bucknall, S. (2009) Children as Researchers: Exploring Issues and Barriers in English Primary Schools, Unpublished PhD thesis, Milton Keynes: The Open University.
 
Bucknall, S. (2009a) ‘Students as researchers: exploring distributed leadership in a school context', ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Seminar, London, 23 February.
 
Bucknall, S. (2009b) ‘Choice and motivation: 9-11 year-old gifted children as independent researchers’. Paper presented at the 18th Biennial World Conference of the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, Vancouver, 3-7 August.
 
Bucknall, S. (2007) ‘Researching young researchers in primary schools: responding to children’s evaluations of a participatory technique’. Paper presented at theBritish Educational Research Association Student Conference, University of London, 5 September.
 
Bucknall, S. (2005) Exploring Children’s Experiences of Carrying Out Their Own Research Studies, Unpublished M.Sc dissertation, Milton Keynes, The Open University.
 
Bucknall, S. (2002) The role of the 'literacy hour' plenary in offering opportunities for metacognitive development. Unpublished dissertation, Westminister Institute of Education Oxford University

 

Alison Wood - CRC Voluntary Outreach Worker

 

Alison has been teaching since 1961.  She began her career teaching mathematics to secondary children.  After seven years in schools she was appointed as a lecturer in Mathematics Education at Homerton College Cambridge where she remained for 30 years.  During this time she was promoted to Senior Lecturer and, when she 'retired' in 1998, she was also the Graduate Tutor for the College. Since 1998 Alison has lived in Oxford where she has worked part time at Oxford Brookes University teaching both undergraduates and postgraduates and delivering INSET courses for teachers. She has a long standing interest in the education of able children and is especially concerned with addressing the needs of able underachievers. 
 

Cindy Kerawalla - CRC Academic

 

Cindy’s main research interest lies in children and young people’s learning with digital technologies in and across formal and informal settings. She has previously also spent one year investigating blogging to support learning in HE. She has carried out research into children’s use of home computers to support primary school work for her PhD. Since then, she has been involved in the design and evaluation of a shared interface to support collaboration, in the evaluation (with the BBC) of augmented reality in primary science, in exploring the potential of tablet PCs to link home and school in primary numeracy learning, and in researching inquiry learning in secondary school Geography supported by mobile technologies. She has also received ESRC funding for the design and evaluation of software - Talk Factory – for use on an interactive whiteboard to support exploratory talk in the primary science classroom. More recently she has worked with a group of Girl Guides on the design, implementation and evaluation of a new ‘Neighbourhood Researcher’ badge which focuses on developing young people as researchers supported by digital data collection technologies.
 
Recent publications
Scanlon, E., Anostopoulou, S., Kerawalla, L. and Mulholland, P. (2011), Scripting personal inquiry: using technology to represent and support students’ understanding of personal inquiry across contexts. JCAL. DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2729.2011.00414.x
 
Kerawalla, L., Petrou, M., and Scanlon, E (under review), The Talk Factory: Supporting 'exploratory talk' around an Interactive Whiteboard in primary school science, Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
 
Kerawalla, L., Littleton, K., Scanlon, E., Jones, A., Gaved, M., Collins, T., Mulholland, P., Blake, C., Clough, G., Conole, G. and Petrou, M. (in press), Technical support for the construction of personal inquiry learning trajectories across contexts. Interactive Learning Environments.
 
Minocha, S. and Kerawalla, L. (2010), University students’ self-motivated blogging and development of study skills and research skills in M. J. W. Lee & C. McLoughlin (Eds.), Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching, Hershey, PA: IGI Global
 
Kerawalla, L., Minocha, S., Kirkup, G. and Conole, G. (2009), Supporting student blogging in higher education, in S. Hatzipanagos and S. Warburton (eds), Social Software and Developing Community Ontologies, Pennsylvania: IGI Global.
 
Kerawalla, L., Pearce, D., Luckin, R., Yuill, N. and Harris, A., (2008), “I’m keeping those there, are you?” The role of a new user interface paradigm – Separate Control of Shared Space (SCOSS) – in the collaborative decision-making process. Computers and Education, 50(1), 193-206.
 
Kerawalla, L., O'Connor J., Underwood, J., Luckin, R., du Boulay, B., Holmberg, J., Tunley, H. and Smith, H., (2007), The Homework system: Using tablet PCs as tools to support numeracy learning between home and primary school. Educational Media International, 44 (4), 289 – 303.
 
Kerawalla, L., Luckin, R., Seljeflot, S. and Woolard, A., (2006), Teacher-child dialogue around an Augmented Reality application designed to teach 10-year-olds about the earth, sun and moon. Virtual Reality, 10 (3-4), pp 163-174. Special issue on the use of VR and AR in education.
 
Kerawalla, L. and Crook, C. (2005), From promises to practices: The fate of educational software in the home. Technology, Pedagogy and Education, 14(1), 107-125.
 
Kerawalla, L. and Crook, C. (2002), Children's computer use at home and at school: context and continuity. British Educational Research Journal, 28, 751-771.

 

 

Maggie Turner, OBE, - CRC Voluntary Outreach Worker

 

 
Maggie, a former social worker, became a ChildLine Counsellor in 1992 and a full-time member of ChildLine Staff in 1997. She developed the UK-wide ChildLine in Partnership with Schools (CHIPS) programme that set up peer support schemes for and run by young people to tackle and prevent bullying behaviour in schools. In 2003 Maggie joined the Diana Award as Chief Executive Officer.  The Award was set up in 1999 to act as a lasting legacy to Diana Princess of Wales’s belief that young people have the power to change the world and has recognised 38,000 young people to date. Maggie strongly believes in highlighting the inspirational contribution that children and young people are making to improve society. Iin 2010 she was awarded OBE for her services to children and young people. Maggie joined CRC as a vountary member of staff following her retirement in 2012.

 

Doug Springate - CRC Voluntary Outreach Worker

Doug began his education career in primary teaching before moving to Higher Education Teacher Training at Greenwich University. He has experience as chair of the European Teacher Education Network and is a life-long supporter of young people and youth education. Doug has a long standing interest in young researchers and played a leading role int he European CARIPSIE project (Children as Researchers in Primary Schools in Europe).