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About me

I am a Doctoral Researcher in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham, conducting an historical ethnography of working-class women’s experiences of education in a former coalmining town. I grew up on a council estate in a coal-mining town in the Midlands and studied for a distance-learning degree whilst balancing work and parenting my son. Later, as a secondary school teacher, I was committed to ensuring that all of my students had the best educational experience possible, regardless of background or circumstance. I am interested in celebrating working-class communities, whilst still drawing attention to the unfairness and inequalities that they may face. 

Alongside my research, I work as an Associate Lecturer for the Open University, having formerly taught across PGCE Primary and PGCE Secondary programmes at the University of Warwick. In conjunction with my role in ITE, I also worked as an educational consultant with schools in North London, supporting professional development of teachers and leading on curriculum development in English across a MAT. My last full-time, school-based role was as Head of English in a large secondary school, but I have also led on provision for ‘higher-ability learners’ and coordinated widening participation programmes focused on supporting learners from diverse backgrounds in pursuing further and higher education.

I am also the BERA Early Career Research Network representative for the Midlands. 

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A 'busy pause'

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Introducing my research

My research project is an historical ethnography of working-class women's experiences of education in a former coalmining town. But it's also about more than that. I want to explore what it means to live, learn and work in one place - one place that has its own stories, but which is also talked about in the stories of others.  I'm an interdisciplinary researcher and I draw on Doreen Massey's work on space and place in my study. For Massey, a place is 'a simultaneity of stories-so-far' (Massey, 2005, p.32). It is these stories - overlapping and contrasting - that I am looking for in my research. Alongside Massey, I use Bourdieu's work to consider how places simultaneously shape and are shaped by the social world. How does the organisation of specific places link to social class or gender? Why are some places seen as 'nicer' than others? How are places shaped by people over time? How are people shaped by places?  I am shaped by the place where I grew ...
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