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- Professor of the Social History of Education
- IOE - Education, Practice & Society
- UCL Institute of Education
I am a historian of modern Britain with interests in the social history
of learning and learners, social movements, co-operation and everyday life. I aim to
understand education and learning in relation to broader social,
economic, cultural and political changes and inequalities. I work across the boundaries of history and the humanities, education and social sciences. I completed a degree and MA at Sussex University. Before embarking on an academic career, I worked in adult literacy, community publishing, voluntary organisations and co-operatives. My PhD, from Manchester University, examined working class writers and writing since the 1970s.
I am a member of the International Centre for Historical Research in Education (ICHRE) and a co-editor (with Mark Freeman and Susannah Wright) of the journal History of Education and previously edited the History of Education Researcher (with Susannah Wright). I serve on the executive committee of the History of Education Society.
Languages spoken/written
Italian (intermediate); French (basic)




I have published widely on working class culture, co-operation and mutuality, co-operative education and compulsory education. These include Working Class Writing and Publishing in the Late Twentieth Century (Manchester University Press, 2018); Secondary Education and the Raising of the School Leaving Age (Palgrave, 2013, with Gary McCulloch and Steven Cowan); Community and Mutual Ownership: A Historical Review (Joseph Rowntree, 2010, with David Crook and Vincent Carpentier).
I have edited special issues of the Oxford Review of Education (36, 2, 2010) on ‘Histories of learning in the modern world’ (with Gary McCulloch); Forum (55, 2, 2013) on ‘Co-operative education for a new age?’ (with Michael Fielding) and the International Journal of Inclusive Education (23, 11, 2019) on ‘Co-operative schools: values and leadership in difficult times’.
I have edited two books, Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values (Routledge, 2015) and Learning for a Co-operative World: Education, Social Change and the Co-operative College (UCL Press, 2019, with Linda Shaw).
Currently, I am updating the history of the Institute of Education for UCL Press and also writing a history of the Co-operative College for Palgrave Macmillan.
My teaching spans the history of learning, both formal and informal, mainly from the late eighteenth century to the present. I have taught at a number of universities including Manchester, Manchester Metropolitan, Leeds and Sassari in Italy. I am a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
In the past I have led on a wide range of courses and modules including undergraduate modules on the History of the Welfare State; MA modules Understanding Education Research, History of Education and Social Histories of British Education; as well as doctoral training modules on Historical and Philosophical Research, Research Methods in the History of Education, Social Movements and Education, Introduction to Historical Research, and Methods of Inquiry on the EdD.
Currently my teaching includes includes Conceptual and Theoretical Inquiry (doctoral); Debates in the History of Education (MA); and Social Histories of Learning and Learners (undergraduate). I am also the IOE faculty programme leader for the MPhil/PhD and a Departmenal Graduate Tutor. I supervise doctoral students in history of education, policy, co-operaton and culture. I am a UKCGE Recognised Research Supervisor.
2018 | ATQ04 - Recognised by the HEA as a Senior Fellow | University College London |