MPhil/PhD Education and Children's Services

University of Chester

Overview

The Faculty of Education and Children’s Services has a vibrant research culture with staff and doctoral students engaged in forms of social and educational enquiry that is of international standing. Our research culture and community are ever expanding, and our doctoral students are central to this development. Our research active staff publish widely in books and academic journals and are involved in local or international research projects. Many also act as academic consultants, editors, reviewers, and examiners which together constitute a very experienced academic base within which postgraduate research students are enabled to flourish.

The Centre for Research into Education, Creativity, and the Arts (RECAP) has an established reputation as a network centre for academics and other professionals using the arts including those in education, arts and culture, health, justice, heritage, sport and organisations and business in the public, private and third sector - locally, nationally, and internationally. It is Co-Directed by Professors Jeff Adams and Allan Owens who have international reputations in their respective fields. Visiting research fellows, professors and artists serve further to enrich our research environment. Project funding from the British Academy, World Bank, Esme Fairborn, RSA, Canadian Social Science Institute, and a wide range of EU streams ensures that the centre remains at the forefront of developments in the field of creative pedagogies and arts-based research with specialisms in Art, Drama and Music Education. Particularly strong collaboration is ongoing with Tate Liverpool, Storyhouse Chester, Curious Minds, NW Arts Council England Bridging Organisation, National Society for Education in Art, and Design (NSEAD) and with our Partner institutions in Austria, Canada, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Japan, Palestine, Spain and Sweden.

Research Areas

Our research into education and pedagogy has developed around the key themes of:

• Creativity
• Early childhood
• Teacher education
• Equity and social justice
• Leadership development, sustainable leadership, and trait leadership, which is supporting the development of the next generation of educational leaders
• Subject specific areas such as the Arts, Modern Foreign Languages and Mathematics Education

The Department

We pride ourselves on a strong international dimension to our research activity. Our doctoral students find themselves part of a vibrant community comprising diverse educational cultures which serve to complement our key values of local research activity in partnership with community stakeholders. The faculty’s international networks thus successfully ensure that our students are part of an academic community in the widest sense. For example, we work with the British Council Higher Education Scholarship for Palestine (HESPAL) and have doctoral students working with us from Sweden, the Netherlands and Spain. Networks are also well established with institutions in Australia and further developing in the USA.