Emeritus Professor Barry MacDonald
We are very sad to report the death of Emeritus Professor Barry MacDonald on Tuesday 16th April 2013, a leading figure in the history and development of the Centre for Applied Research in Education. Barry will be sorely missed by all friends and colleagues in CARE and the wider community.
Professor Barry MacDonald was one of the four founding members of CARE appointed in 1970 on permanent contracts. He was appointed Director of CARE in open competition in 1984 following the death of Lawrence Stenhouse in 1982 and remained in this role until he retired in 1997. Before that he had directed the Success and Failure in Recent Innovation (SAFARI) study funded by the FORD FOUNDATION. He also directed from CARE the National Evaluation of the government funded programme on Computer Assisted Learning in Universities (UNCAL). In the late 70's the Ford Foundation also asked him to carry out an evaluation of bilingual schooling in Boston. The report was published in the CARE Book Series and entitled ‘Bread and Dreams' (see below).
In 1984 the Home Office commissioned Barry to Direct a National Review of Police Probationer Training in the wake of the Brixton and Toxteth Riots and the report by Lord Justice Scarman. The recommendations of the Review continue to impact on police training to-day. These and other large scale policy-focused evaluations came, alongside action research, to define the work of CARE over a period of 30 years at the end of the 20th century. Through them, Barry developed the methodology of case-based and policy focused evaluation that became known as the ‘Democratic Evaluation' paradigm. Some of his projects now form a significant part of an ESRC funded digital archive of case study-based evaluations constructed by a team working in CARE and Cambridge University. When the history of educational programme evaluation in the UK gets written up, Barry will be portrayed as one of its key players. His international influence as a member of a network of pioneering cross-Atlantic programme evaluators, who met together periodically in Cambridge UK, was considerable.
Below you will find a link to material from ‘Bread and Dreams' and a contextualising interview by John Elliott:
http://www.ensemble.ac.uk/projects/edeval/edeval_breadanddreams_video1.html
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A centre for research and evaluation in education and the professions, serving lifelong learning in the public and private sectors.
- Activities
Applied research including action research; programme and policy evaluation; consultancy; methodological development; research training; research degrees. - Orientation and philosophy
Field-based enquiry aimed at the improvement of educational policy and practice across the professions and the enhancement of democracy. - Excellence in research and training
The School of Education and Lifelong Learning, of which CARE is a part, receives the highest rating by OFSTED inspectors for its teacher training programmes.
Applied Research in Education
Over 35 years, CARE has developed and field tested a conception of Applied Research as a form of systematic critical enquiry carried out within the context of action to effect worthwhile educational change.
CARE was established in 1970, UEA providing a permanent home for the core team of the Humanities Curriculum Project, a major curriculum project of the 1960s. At that time UEA had no School of Education (and did not envisage one) and so CARE was seen as a research centre essentially engaged in external applied research projects in the education sector. CARE quickly established itself, nationally and internationally, as a centre of activity in two areas: action research and program evaluation, and added to its activities a post graduate training programme which attracted many international students.
In 1980 CARE was incorporated in the newly established School of Education, along with the Keswick Hall College of Education, a long established Norwich institution, which brought the Centre into more direct contact with teacher education and continuing professional development programmes. The Centre continued to expand its interests in Education and Training, working in police training, the health sector and the arts and in parallel its reputation as distinctive centre in terms of developing research methodologies that addressed issues of organisational and curriculum change.
CARE continues as research and research training centre with a distinctive methodological approach and working in multidisciplinary ways in diverse settings. Currently we are particularly active in educational development in the developing world, in the arts, in higher education and in the use of mobile and multimedia technologies. Methodologically, we have several projects looking at the active engagement of participants in the research process (children included) and we are exploring new forms of archiving and searching case based archives. Our students remain a multinational and multicultural group and almost all of them return to their home countries on graduating with the aim of developing programmes of applied research in education.
CARE Annual Report 2010-11 (pdf).
The April 2013 CARE Newsletter (pdf).
People
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| Dr Teresa Belton t.belton@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592637 EDU 1.59 | Ms Sue Cox s.p.cox@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 593157 EDU 1.11 | Professor John Elliott john.elliott@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592859 EDU 1.35 | Dr Kathleen Lane kathleen.lane@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592860 EDU 1.59 |
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| Dr Yann Lebeau y.lebeau@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592754 EDU 1.19 | Professor Nigel Norris n.norris@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592620 EDU 0.17 | Dr Christine O'Hanlon c.o-hanlon@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592628 EDU 1.35 | Dr Esther Priyadharshini e.priya@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592858 EDU 1.22 |
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| Dr Barbara Ridley b.ridley@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592614 EDU 1.18 | Dr Anna Robinson-Pant a.robinson-pant@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592857 EDU 1.20 | Dr Jacqueline Watson jacqueline.watson@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 592924 EDU 1.21 | Ms Barbara Zamorski b.zamorski@uea.ac.uk +44 (0)1603 593154 EDU 1.24 |