Education futures

The Education Futures Research Cluster is in the School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport. Cluster researchers investigate teaching and learning to understand and shape more equitable, innovative, and future-oriented learning opportunities in the 21st century. Our work, which explores the interplay between theory and practice, contributes to knowledge expansion and seeks to impact the unfolding educational agenda at a systemic level, locally, nationally, and internationally.

We take a broadly social approach to teaching and learning and use a variety of theoretical and methodological approaches, including, for example, sociocultural theory, activity theory, ethnography, historical analysis, discourse analysis and multimodal analysis. These approaches explore teaching and learning and learners’ identities in formal and informal contexts in homes, nurseries, primary and secondary schools, higher education and work-based settings.

Entry requirements

Minimum 2:1 undergraduate degree (or equivalent) and an MA or research methods training at MA level (or equivalent). If you are not a UK citizen, you may need to prove your knowledge of English.

Potential research projects

We are interested in research topics related in some way to the themes noted below:

• Pedagogy and practice
• Creativity in education
• Literacy teaching and learning
• Inclusion and equity
• Working with children with special educational needs
• Young learners’ and professionals’ identities, agency and voice
• Early and primary phase learning in homes, schools and communities
• Informal learning
• International education and development
• Teacher education and development, in the UK and internationally
• School leadership and management
• Education in the information age
• Digital inclusion, assistive technologies and learning disabilities.

Current/recent research projects

Students’ projects explore a diverse range of issues including, for example:

• The impact of climate change awareness on decision making processes in late adolescents
• Outdoor pedagogies for babies and young children
• The Black awarding gap in distance learning for Law
• Broken pipeline of adult community education in Nigeria
• Induction and development schemes for work-based learning tutors on degree-level management apprenticeships in England
• Perceptions of school-led learning outside of school focussing on children with special educational needs and disabilities
• How pre-school children with a disability experience outdoor play and learning in a forest school/nature kindergarten in mainstream education settings in Scotland
• Children's physical activity experiences through the transition into secondary school
• Teachers’ access to Professional Development
• Developing climate centric narratives in India using creative writing as a way of making sense of the world through creative, arts-based, psychosocial approaches
• Early career teachers’ professionalism
• Embedding institution-wide best practice in digital accessibility through a framework of guidance, training, and advocacy
• Complexities of reflective practice in Policing Education
• The assessment of soft skills development within STEAM based learning
• The impact of the introduction of the Solicitor’s Qualifying Examination on the teaching, learning and assessment strategy in professional legal education
• 'Overstanding' the strengths-based praxis of young Black British women
• Distance higher education tuition in prisons in the UK
• Museum and participatory research

Potential supervisors

• Dr Alison Buckler
• Dr Natalie Canning
• Professor Teresa Cremin
• Dr Jane Cullen
• Dr Carol Azumah Dennis
• Dr Alison Fox
• Dr Poppy Gibson
• Dr Helen Hendry
• Dr Clare Lee
• Dr Jackie Musgrave
• Dr Jon Rainford
• Dr Fiona Reeve
• Dr Lucy Rodriquez-Leon
• Dr Kris Stutchbury
• Professor Freda Wolfenden

Fees and funding

PhD fees

Professional doctorate fees

Some of our research students are funded via the Faculty or The Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership; others are self-funded.

For detailed information about fees and funding, visit Fees and studentships.

To see current funded studentship vacancies across all research areas, visit Current studentships.

Links

• School of Education, Childhood, Youth and Sport
• Childhoods, Youth and Sport Group
• Children's Research Centre
• Centre for Children’s Wellbeing: Body, Mind and Media
• Centre for Literacy and Social Justice
• ArDdysg Teacher Education Research Group | Faculty of Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies (open.ac.uk)