• Blank pages

    Blank pages

    November is academic writing month, and here I am writing. In the Peak District, where I live and do my writing work, it’s chilly and misty. At the end of the day, I’ll take my Labrador, Jussi, for a run around on the moor to wind down. The fog can make it spooky up there,…

  • Educating Kemi: resisting negative narratives around neurodiversity

    Educating Kemi: resisting negative narratives around neurodiversity

    The Tory leadership contender, Kemi Badenoch, has recently made some ‘stigmatising’ and confused remarks concerning autistic people. This is just the latest chapter in what has become an ongoing spectacle of socio-cultural posturing within what the media often calls the “culture wars.” Not content with vilifying asylum seekers and trans people, Badenoch is now targeting…

  • The Sheffield Institute of Education: over a century of training teachers to transform lives

    The Sheffield Institute of Education: over a century of training teachers to transform lives

    Sheffield Hallam University has trained teachers for well over 100 years. We began back in 1905 as the Sheffield City Training College at our Collegiate Campus site under the guidance of Reverend Valentine Ward Pearson, the founding Principal. Our intake was approximately 150 students. We were already at the forefront of teacher training college development…

  • LGBT+ community, solidarities and isolation

    LGBT+ community, solidarities and isolation

    This is the final of three blog posts about the Whose Rainbow? Project, which explored what the rainbow means to LGBT+ staff and students in higher education. If you’re interested and want to find out more about the project – and about Equality, Diversity and Inclusion in universities more broadly – we will be launching…

  • Free labour and institutional non-performativity in LGBT+ people’s experiences of higher education

    Free labour and institutional non-performativity in LGBT+ people’s experiences of higher education

    In the Whose Rainbow? project we have been asking LGBT+ staff, students, and self-declared ‘allies’, about their experiences of higher education. One major finding from our interviews was the vast amount of additional, often uncompensated, labour required of LGBT+ staff and students. This ranged from personal efforts to be correctly recognized in their identity to…

  • On allyship and rainbow lanyards

    On allyship and rainbow lanyards

    In recent months, rainbow lanyards have become a focal point in a broader cultural debate. These symbols, primarily associated with support for the LGBT+ community, have been thrust into the spotlight, their meaning and appropriateness questioned by political figures and institutions, including bans in both the Scottish Parliament and UK Civil Service. Since 2021, I…

  • Kindness: Why it matters in higher education

    Kindness: Why it matters in higher education

    To be kind is a basic maxim for how we conduct our personal lives. It may seem unusual to use the lens of kindness on institutions, such as in higher education. My research with my colleague Olalekan Adekola has done exactly that. We have argued for a ‘kindness’ approach to improve the learning and social…

  • The general election: our requests for the next government

    The general election: our requests for the next government

    A general election has been called for July. An election is always a time for change, often bringing new ministers into new roles and, with them, shifting priorities and policies. As we look ahead to the next government coming into office, and await the publication of party manifestos, we’ve been considering what we’d like to…

  • “We know it is important, but we’ve got to get academic results”: Head Teachers’ perspectives on primary physical education

    “We know it is important, but we’ve got to get academic results”: Head Teachers’ perspectives on primary physical education

    The value of primary physical education (PE) has been a ‘hot topic’ for decades, awash with Government interest, policy and funding. Primary PE has received investment in excess of £2.5 billion since London hosted the Olympics and Paralympics in 2012, making it the most additionally funded subject in the curriculum, yet PE still remains undervalued…

  • Sharing the knowledge: training doctoral students to write beyond academia

    Sharing the knowledge: training doctoral students to write beyond academia

    In 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, the president of the United States horrified the medical establishment by proposing injections with disinfectant as a treatment for COVID. It’s hard to think of a better example as to why now, perhaps more than ever, society needs to hear from experts – and those experts…

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