Friday, December 9, 2016

Faculty Advisor

Faculty Advisor

Today I received the excellent news that my faculty advisor will be Professor Tony Gallagher, of Queen's University Belfast School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work - Professor
The Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice
Centre for Evidence and Social Innovation.

This is a tremendous honor because his work is innovative, forward-thinking, and in concert with my intention to bring Full Service Extended School to Lehighton, Pennsylvania.

From the QUB website:


RESEARCH STATEMENT

My main research interest over my career has focused on the role of education in divided societies, although I have also carried out some significant work on aspects of equality and inclusion through education. Most of this work has been carried out in Northern Ireland, although I have been invited by international organisations to work in the Middle East (United States Institute of Peace) and South East Europe (Council of Europe, British Council and various UN agencies).
 Given my leadership roles within Queens over recent years (2005-2010 Head of the School of Education; 2010-continuing, Pro Vice Chancellor) I have consolidated my research activity and now mainly focus on work on shared education. This represents an innovative approach to addressing issues related to ethnic and religious dfferences in education in Northern Ireland and has received very significant funding support from Atlantic Philanthropies and the Internaiotnal Fund for Ireland. 
The shared education approach arises from a critique of previous approaches within education to addressing community relations and has developed a practical alternative aimed at achieving systemic change through the promotion of collaborative networks of schools in which pupils and teachers take classes across a number of schools. Over a period of four years we have supported 24 networks of mainly post-primary schools and in the most recent year over 5,000 pupils took over 3,000 regular classes in neighbouring schools of a different denominaitonal tradition. 
Most of my activity related to this project in recent years has focused on advocacy for shared education as a policy imperative and this has achieved some considerable success: shared education was adopted as an explicit policy commitment in the manifestoes of four of the five main political parties in the 2011 NI Assembly election and a commitment to shared education goals was included in the Executive's Programme for Government. In addition, we have received interest in bringing the model of shared education to Macedonia, Malaysia and Israel, with a collaborative project in Israel already in receipt of some funding support from the British Council. Given all this interest and attention, the shared education initiative has the potential for a 4* impact statement for the 2014 REF.

TEACHING

My main teaching responsibilities within the School lie in contributions to taught modules of the EdD programme, and one of the general lectures to the PGCE group. In the past I have also taught MEd/MSc modules. Since my appointment as Pro Vice Chancellor I am no longer able to take module programmes, but I continue to offer occasoinal lectures to the PGCE and Masters programme in the School.

RESEARCH:

SHARED EDUCATION: BUILDING POSITIVE INTERGROUP RELATIONS IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES

Impact: Public Policy Impact, Societal Impact

NARRATIVE

The education system in Northern Ireland (NI) is divided on ethno-religious lines, with around 94% of pupils attending predominantly co-religionist (Catholic or Protestant) schools. Research by Hughes and Gallagher on intergroup contact and the role of education in divided societies led to the establishment of the Sharing Education Programme (SEP) at Queen’s to test and model cross-denominational school collaboration. The SEP has established 23 collaborative networks involving 130 schools and 16,000 pupils. The programme facilitates sustained encounters between Protestants and Catholics, and has led to more positive intergroup responses amongst participants. Shared Education informed a review of community relations policy in education, and was identified as a priority in the Programme for Government (2012), and a Ministerial Advisory Group (MAG) was established. Drawing extensively on the SEP model and associated research, the MAG report recommends that shared education is mainstreamed in Northern Ireland and these recommendations have been fully accepted by the Minister of Education. The shared education model is also being transferred to other divided jurisdictions, including Macedonia and Israel.

CATEGORY OF IMPACT

  • Public Policy Impact
  • Societial Impact
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)