Cultural Studies in Education

Researchers in the Cultural Studies in Education group are interested in the overlaps between culture and education.  

We draw inspiration from Lawrence Stenhouse, who (in 1967) argued that education and culture are inseparable and that education ought to be a means of enhancing individuality, behaviour and freedom of thought: "The culture we transmit should encourage creative thinking; it should not determine thought but be a resource to be drawn upon".

Our research group examines the intersection of learning and education with popular cultures, media, activism, creativity, migration and mobilities, the arts and social movements. This encompasses formal and informal education as well as public and alternative pedagogies, and the ways they are folded into larger cultural, political and social narratives. Group members are also interested in international education, educational policy studies, the changing nature and role of languages in a range of contemporary contexts as well as the evolution of the field of digital sociologies and digital ethics.

Members of this group have researched and published in the areas of international higher education, social movements, activism, youth identities, gender, sexuality and sport, disability and education, migration and learning, and the significance of young people’s imaginaries of AI and of educational futures.

Individually and as a unit, we are active in extending traditional methods and developing new methodological and theoretical approaches, including public sociology, critical pedagogy, narrative analysis, new materialisms and post-digital and post qualitative approaches.

The group is committed to interdisciplinary work and supports research collaboration, both within UEA and further afield. We continue to seek new partners, funding opportunities, and a variety of forums through which to engage in discussions around cultures and education.