I am a Lecturer in Sociology of Education in the Department of Education, Practice and Society at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society. I am also the Programme Leader for the MA in Sociology of Education.
My own educational journey has been truly interdisciplinary. I strongly value interdisciplinarity and bring it to my research, teaching and programme leadership. For my Undergraduate degree, I gained a First Class BA (Hons) in Combined Studies (Politics, English Literature and Economic and Social History) from the University of Leicester. During this degree, I developed an interest in drawing links between historical literary, political and social movements.
I went on to undertake an ESRC-funded MA in Political Science, in which I gained a Distinction, and a PhD in Political Sociology, both at the University of Nottingham. I focused my attention on contemporary utopianism, and its expression in political ideologies, literary works and lived intentional communities. Following my doctoral studies, I was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Advanced Studies at the University of Nottingham where I further developed the interdisciplinary potential of my work by focusing on educational utopias (in theory, fiction and practice), and on the critical pedagogies of radical and ecological social movements.
I have since firmly established myself in the exciting, diverse and interdisciplinary field of Sociology of Education, having held research and lecturing roles in Sociology and Education departments at Brunel University, the University of East London, and the University of Essex, before coming to my present position. I feel at very much at-home in the IOE, which not only embodies UCL’s progressive values of ‘disruptive thinking’, but once also served as the intellectual home of Professor Karl Mannheim, the ‘founding father’ of both Sociology of Education, and of Utopian Studies, my own core specialisms.