Educational Research for Social Justice

Alistair Ross is an Emeritus Professor at London Metropolitan University, holds a personal Jean Monnet chair, and is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK). After a career in teaching in primary schools, he lectured in teacher education, and then in education policy research. He established and directed IPSE (2000-09) and a Jean Monnet Academic Network on children’s identity and citizenship in Europe (1998-2008). After retiring he has been conducting a one-person study on young European’s constructions of political identities and their participation in political action. Other research interests include citizenship and refugee education, particularly with reference to social inclusion; the nature and diversity of the educational workforce; and access and achievement in education for all social groups.  Recent publications include Understanding the Construction of Identities by New Europeans (Routledge 2015) and Finding Political Identities: Young people in a changing Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2019).

• 1. What do educational science and the public good mean in the context of educational research for social justice?; Alistair Ross.- 2. Snake oil or hard struggle? Research to address the reality of social injustice in education; Ian Menter.- 4. Accountability, social justice and educational research; Merryn Hutchings.- 4. Who gets to be creative in class? Creativity as a matter of social justice in secondary English lessons; Andrew McCallum.- 5. Between home and school: Mobilising ‘hard to reach’ white British parents to engage with their children’s education; Nathan Fretwell.- 6. Ability to learn, or ability to pay? How family and finance influence young people’s higher education decisions in Scotland; Sarah Minty.- 7. Inequality, social mobility and the ‘glass floor’: How more affluent parents secure educational advantage for their children; Merryn Hutchings.- 8. In pursuit of worldly justice in Early Childhood Education: bringing critique and creation into productive partnership for the public good; Jayne Osgood.- 9. The masculinisation of the teaching profession or gynophobia as education policy; Marie-Pierre Moreau.- 10. Gender and the politics of knowledge in the academy; Barbara Read and Carole Leathwood.- 11. Curriculum diversity and social justice education: From New Labour to Conservative government control of education in England; Uvanney Maylor.- 12. The construction of political identities: young Europeans’ deliberation on ‘the public good’; Alistair Ross.- 13. Can educational programmes address social inequity? Some examples from Europe; Nanny Hartsmar, Carole Leathwood, Alistair Ross and Julia Spinthourakis.- 14. The problem of the public good and the implications for researching educational policies for social justice; Alistair Ross.