My research is in the critical sociology of higher education. It concerns the different values that people who study and work in higher education bring to their educational endeavours, and how they strive to be ethical and consistent in often unethical and inconsistent circumstances. Increasingly I am thinking about what educationalists can learn from ethical behaviour outside of formal educational spaces.   

I recently completed a project that examined the increasing popularity of interdisciplinary degrees branded as ‘liberal arts’ in English universities. I analysed this striking global trend (away from undergraduate specialisation and toward general education) as a symptom of complex changes in the university landscape. The culmination of the project is a monograph published in early 2023 with Bristol University Press, called The Liberal Arts Paradox in Higher Education: Negotiating Inclusion and Prestige. You can read the introduction of the book for free here: https://bit.ly/telling_lib_arts 

I have also published more broadly, alone and in collaboration, in areas such as international skills policy, social theory, and women’s studies as a discipline (which was the subject of my PhD research). 

I largely teach on the BSc Education, especially on core modules. I think of myself as a 'specialist in generalism' and love thinking about how the core of a degree fits together, how we think about the foundations of our disciplines, and how students progress from general knowledge to specialist expertise over time.