Contacts

For any queries relating to this site in particular, or Ethnography and Education in general, please contact ethnographyandeducation@open.ac.uk.

Dennis Beach is currently Professor of Education at the University of Borås, Sweden and visiting professor at the University of Roehampton, London, England and Kalamar University College, Sweden. He is an experienced ethnographer of education and the author of several books in the field. His current main research interests are in the politics of education change and the globalisation of neo-liberal education policy. He is research leader on three major national research projects and a participant in international research in these areas.

Bob Jeffrey taught in primary schools for over 20 years and joined The Open University in 1992 as a researcher, working with Professor Peter Woods and Dr. Geoff Troman, specializing in primary teacher's work and teacher and pupil creativity from a sociological perspective. These two strands have been held together by an interest in exploring the agency of the individual under conditions of tension and constraint and in particular the effects on their creativity. Having recently completed a nine nation European research project into creative learning and Co-Directing an ESRC seminar series on Creativity in Education with Anna Craft, his current research is leading, with Professor Geoff Troman, an ESRC 2 year study of the effects of creativity and performativity policies in primary schools and another on primary teacher identity. He is co-founder and deputy editor of the Ethnography and Education journal, and commissioning editor of a series of the same title with Tufnell Press. He was co-founder of the European Ethnography Research Network at ECER, the Open Creativity Centre at the OU with Anna Craft, and the Creativity SIG at BERA. Recent publications include: Jeffrey, B. Woods, P. (2003) The Creative School, London, Falmer Press, and Troman, G., Beach, D. and Jeffrey, B. (2006) Researching Education Policy: Ethnographic Experiences, London, Tufnell Press.

Geoff Troman

is Professor of Education at Froebel College, School of Education at Roehampton University, London and Director of the Centre for Research on Education Policy and Professionalism - CeREPP. He is also Visiting Professor of Education ('LUN' Visiting Scholar)at the University College of Boras, Sweden. He is Director of the Economic and Social Research Council funded project: Primary Teacher Identity, Commitment and Career in Performative Cultures (PTICC) 2005 - 2007. He is also Co-Director (with Bob Jeffrey)of the 2005 - 2007 ESRC Creativity and Performativity in Teaching and Learning (CAPITAL). Previously he was a Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at the Open University. He taught science for twenty years in secondary modern, comprehensive and middle schools before moving into Higher Education in 1989. Throughout his time in schools he carried out research as a teacher researcher. His Ph.D research was an ethnography of primary school restructuring. Geoff is foundation Editor (with Bob Jeffrey, The Open University; Geoffrey Walford, University of Oxford; and Tuula Gordon, University of Helsinki)of the Journal 'Ethnography and Education'published by Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group

Geoffrey Walford is Professor of Education Policy and a Fellow of Green College at the University of Oxford. He is author of many academic articles and book chapters, and his books include: Life in Public Schools (Methuen, 1986), City Technology College (Open University Press, 1991, with Henry Miller), Doing Educational Research (Routledge, editor, 1991), Choice and Equity in Education (Cassell, 1994), Researching the Powerful in Education (UCL Press, editor, 1994), Policy, Politics and Education - sponsored grant-maintained schools and religious diversity (Ashgate, 2000), Doing Qualitative Educational Research (Continuum, 2001), Private Schooling: Tradition and diversity (Continuum, 2005) and Markets and Equity in Education (Continuum, 2006). Within the Department of Education at the University of Oxford he teaches on the MSc in Educational Research Methodology course, and supervises masters and doctoral research students. He is Editor of the annual volume, Studies in Educational Ethnography, and has been Editor of the Oxford Review of Education since January 2004. His research foci are the relationships between central government policy and local processes of implementation, private schools, choice of schools, religiously-based schools and ethnographic research methodology.

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