As a historian of modern Britain I have interests in the social history of learning and learners, social movements and everyday life. I aim to understand education and learning in relation to broader social, economic, cultural and political changes. Recently 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’; Forum (55, 2, 2013) on ‘Co-operative education for a new age?’ 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.