Tag: Bristol

Guest lecture at the University of the West of England

Posted on by lucy.haslam
Split image, with the UWE logo in red on the left hand side and a photo of the UWE campus on the right. The campus is a modern wood and glass building against a blue sky.

On 31st January, Katherin and Valentina were invited to give a guest lecture at the School of Education and Childhood of the University of the West of England in Bristol.

The lecture was delivered as part of the Policy and Contemporary Issues module offered to the students enrolled in Post-Graduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) for Early Years, Primary, and Secondary education.

The lecture – titled Inequalities and bias in schools: using big data to detect injustices – provided an overview over ‘traditional’ and recent academic research on socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in education, focusing especially on the role of teacher-student relationships and school and classroom environments.

BIPE preliminary findings on teacher bias were presented, providing an example of how academic research making use of big data can be used to engage in conversations with educational practitioners and policy makers. Students were encouraged to be diagnostic in recognising the influence that big data has today on educational policy and critically evaluate its value, limitations, and complexity, especially when considering the topic of biases and inequalities in existing across schools in England today.

After the lecture, the students had the chance to engage in reflective and creative group activities in their seminar groups. Guided discussions encouraged PGCE students to critically discuss BIPE preliminary findings on teacher bias in light of their own experiences and views and reflect on potential strategies and changes to fight such biases.

Participant feedback was very positive highlighting both the interest in the topic and its relevance for their own professional development. Particularly, as the students had just finished their first 3-month placement in primary and secondary schools, they found the opportunity to relate their own first-hand placement experiences to the academic research and findings presented very useful and motivating.

If you are interested in hearing more about our teacher workshops, further information can be found on our flyer.

Slides from the workshop can be found on our ‘Teaching materials’ page.

Workshop for school staff in-service day at Edinburgh primary school

Posted on by lucy.haslam
A photo of Katherin Barg and Valentina Perinetti Casoni outside of Gracemount Primary School

On 8th January, Katherin and Valentina gave a workshop titled Inequalities and bias in schools: reasons, research and reactions at Gracemount Primary School in Edinburgh. The event was organised as part of the school January in-service day and involved more than 50 members of staff including teachers, nursery staff, Pupil Support Assistants, and office staff.

The workshop started with an overview of ‘traditional’ and recent academic research on socioeconomic and ethnic inequalities in education, focusing particularly on the role of teacher-student relationships and on recent evidence on achievement gaps in Scotland and England.

Gracemount school staff was then guided through two main interactive, reflective, and creative group activities. The first activity focused on encouraging workshop participants to critically discuss BIPE preliminary findings on teacher bias. Then to share their own experiences and views on potential mechanisms and explanations for misunderstandings and misperceptions between teachers and school staff on one side and pupils and their families on their other. The second activity gave the staff the opportunity to reflect on their own school and classroom practices and experiences in order to develop practical strategies to tackle bias and inequalities in the context of Gracemount school itself.

Initial feedback from participants was very positive, demonstrating a great deal of interest in the topic addressed by the workshop and its interactive activities. Participants said that, as a result, they felt encouraged to challenge themselves as teachers and education practitioners.

For example, one participant reported how the workshop might motivate themselves and other teachers to:

[…] become more aware of their biases[,] keep themselves accountable for how the children are perceived, [l]ook at our own behaviour and how it impacts our teaching[, and b]e honest with ourselves.

If you are interested in hearing more about our teacher workshops, further information can be found on our flyer.

Slides from the workshop can be found on our ‘Teaching materials’ page.

Workshop at the Summer Conference of the Cabot Learning Federation

Posted on by lucy.haslam
Logo of the Cabot Learning Federation

On Friday 7th July, we had the opportunity to run our teacher workshop ‘Inequalities and bias in schools: reasons, research and reactions’ at the Summer Conference of the Cabot Learning Federation.

The conference was held at City Academy Bristol and attended by more than 1,200 teaching staff. Our workshop participants came from different subject areas and had different school roles. Their discussions on reasons for discrepancies between teachers’ and students’ perceptions of students’ attitudes to school were extremely insightful and will help us interpret our results.

Katherin presents at the South-West Anti Racist Education Forum

Posted on by lucy.haslam
A seated crowd watches a performance of Breathing Fire with Ruth Pitter

On 23rd June, Katherin presented our findings on teacher perceptions of students’ academic attitudes at the South-West Anti Racist Education Forum, University of Bristol.

In an interactive session attended by teachers, head teachers, inclusion leads, teacher educators, and charity representatives, the project findings were discussed and evaluated in relation to specific situations in classrooms and schools. The project will greatly benefit from the views and experiences attendees shared in this workshop.

Image is of the Playback Theatre performance ‘Breathing Fire’ with Ruth Pitter

Valentina presents at the 2023 British Sociological Association Annual Conference

Posted on by lucy.haslam
Visual identity for the BSA 2023 conference

On 14th April, Valentina presented at the British Sociological Association (BSA) 2023 Annual Conference – Sociological Voices in Public Discourse hosted by the University of Manchester.

At the 2023 BSA Conference, Valentina presented preliminary results for a work-in-progress BIPE paper investigating the socio-economic gradient in teacher-student relationship in England and Scotland. The paper explores teacher-student relationships by focusing on the accuracy of teacher perceptions of student’s attitudes towards school and learning. In both England and Scotland, preliminary empirical evidence shows how teacher perceptions are not entirely accurate, indeed they appear to be biased based on the socio-economic background of the student in question.

Slides from the presentation can be viewed on our ‘Materials and publications’ page.

Katherin presents at the Centre for Comparative and International Research in Education (CIRE) of the University of Bristol

Posted on by lucy.haslam
CIRE logo in large yellow letters on a dark green background with a flower over the I.

On the 6th of December, Katherin presented at an internal CIRE meeting, a forum intended for faculty and PGRs to share research ideas and ongoing projects in order to receive feedback from faculty and PGRs with different research interest and areas of expertise in the field of educational research.

Katherin presented some preliminary results of the BIPE project focusing on social and ethnic biases in primary school in England.

Slides from the presentation can be viewed on our ‘Materials and publications’ page.

Welcome to our new Senior Research Associate

Posted on by lucy.haslam

We are delighted to have a new member on the project team!

Valentina Perinetti Casoni has joined us as Senior Research Associate and will be working with us on data analysis, writing up of publications and impact activities.

We are now getting started with a paper on discrepancies between teacher, parent and children’s perceptions of learning and teaching. We are curious to find out whether such discrepancies vary by student, social and ethnic background, and what their impacts on further educational pathways are.

Jurassic Coast Teacher Network

Posted on by lucy.haslam
Scenic photo of the Jurassic Coast, featuring a blue sea, cliffs and sand dunes

On 30th June, Katherin gave a workshop on unconscious bias to teachers in the Jurassic Coast Teacher Network. This network, which is led by Woodroffe School in Lyme Regis, connects teachers across schools in West Dorset, South Devon and Somerset.

Participant feedback was very positive and shows the workshop will have impact on practice:

It was very thought provoking and produced many conversations about what we do or don’t do, and what we might need to think about…it will help inform our work next year on feedback and marking.

If you are interested in hearing more about our teacher workshops, further information can be found on our flyer, on our ‘Teaching materials’ page.