Andrea Abbas is a sociologist who has worked in the Criminology and Sociology subject group at the University of Teesside since 1999. Prior to that she was a Graduate Teaching Assistant at Keele University whilst she studied for her PhD (Sociological approaches to the sexed running body and its construction through magazine and memory 1979-1995). This was a feminist piece of work which explored interview and media data using three different theoretical approaches. For the last year of her PhD she worked as a Research Fellow and part-time teacher in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Keele.

Research interests

Andrea has been researching in the area of the Sociology of Higher Education since 1998 when she was employed as a research fellow on a Hefce funded project researching into the conditions of part-time teachers of sociology and developing appropriate methods of support.  This research and development project tried to draw upon a sociological analysis and theorising of the context of part-time teachers work to in order to make useful suggestions for supporting them.  Andrea is interested in utilising and developing sociological theory in a way that facilitates positive social change that addresses social inequality.  Andrea has been working with Monica McLean, from Nottingham University, developing the current project through pilot studies over the past two years and they have published three journal articles and one (forthcoming) chapter in an edited collection on this topic.

Andrea’s interest in social inequality extends into and informs her other research in leisure and the arts. She has conducted a wide range of research and evaluation which explores the role of the arts in regeneration and social equality/inequality. Andrea has evaluated events, activities and participation on behalf of many local agencies and has developed strong links in the Teesside area.  She was co-applicant on a JRF funded project which explored the extended youth transitions of young people in the North East of England.

Andrea also has a strong interest in qualitative research methodologies and teaches qualitative methods at undergraduate and postgraduate level. She is particularly interested in arts research methods and is convener of a forthcoming colloquium 'Arts Practice and Research Methods' to be held at the University of Teesside.  This will engage arts practitioners (who conduct research) and social scientists that use arts methods in research, in a mutual exploration of common and critical issues and approaches.  She is also on the advisory panel of an AHRC funded network project entitled 'Qualitative Methods of Enquiry into the Arts Consumption Experience and its Impact'.

Publications

• Abbas, A., and McLean, M., (forthcoming, 2009). Tackling inequality through quality: A comparative case study exploring university teacher's views, in Global Inequalities and Higher Education: Palgrave; London.
• McLean, M. and Abbas, A. (forthcoming, 2009) The 'biographical turn' in university sociology teaching: a Bernsteinian analysis, Teaching in Higher Education.
• Abbas, A., and McLean, M. (2007). Qualitative research as a method for making just comparisons of pedagogic quality in higher education: A pilot study: British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28 (6).
• Abbas, A., (2004). The Embodiment of Class, Gender and Age through Leisure: A realist analysis of long distance running: Leisure Studies, vol. 23, no2, p.159-175.
• Webster, C., Simpson, D., MacDonald, R., Abbas, A., Cieslik, M., Shildrick. T., and Simpson, M., (2004). Poor transitions: Social exclusion and young adults, Cambridge: Policy Press in Association with Jospeph Rountree Foundation.
• Abbas, A., and Mclean, M., (Jan, 2003). Communicative Competence and the Improvement of University Teaching: insights from the field: British Journal of Sociology of Education, Vol 24, No. 1.
• Abbas, A., and Mclean, M., (September, 2001). Becoming Sociologists: supporting part-time teachers of sociology to form professional identities: British Journal of Sociology of Education, Volume 22, Number 3, p.339-352.
• Abbas, A., and Shildrick, T., (2002). Rituals of Consumption Classes? An analysis of Whitby Gothic Weekend: Consumer, Commodities and Consumption, (ASA Special Interest Group),Vol. 3, No. 2.

Selected funded consultancy/research work

• Current Project: Co-applicant, Pedgagogic Quality and Inequality, ESRC.
• Festival Evaluation of AV06, (2006), funded by Audio Visual Festival partnership
• Extended Youth Transitions and Social Exclusion, 2003-2004. Joseph Rowntree Foundation, with Macdonald, R., Webster, C., Ceislik, M., Shildrick, T., Simpson, D., and Simpson, M.
• Evaluation of the Doredrecht Innitiative, 2003-2006, with Harrison, J., MacDonald, R., Simpson, M., and Shildrick, T.
• Temporary Project Manager for Nissa Project, 2005-2006, an ESF funded project.
• An Evaluation of an ESF Cultural Skills Development Programme, 2004, with Moore, J. Funded by ESF.
• An Evaluation of Cultural Skills, 2004, Moore, J. ESF Evaluation.  
• An Evaluation of Careers Club, 2004, with Shildrick,T. Funded by Community Campus 2002 An Evaluation of Key Skills (Construction), 2002. Funded by Community Campus.

Research interests

Paul’s research interests are focused on teaching, learning, and assessment in higher education. His forthcoming book focuses on ways of conceptualising teaching-learning processes in higher education that support a consideration of both structure and agency. It examines a range of ways of conceptualising teaching-learning processes including Approaches to Learning and Teaching; Academic Literacies; Communities of Practice; Teaching and Learning Regimes; Activity Theory; Symbolic Interactionism; Basil Bernstein's notion of the Pedagogic Device; and a Bourdieusian analysis of Institutional Cultures. Following on from the work in this book, he is beginning to examine the relations between theory and method in research into teaching-learning processes in higher education.

His other current research projects include an EU-funded project examining ways of supporting Communities of Practice; and the evaluation of the Scottish Funding Council's Teaching and Learning Enhancement Strategy for Higher Education.

He is co-convener of the British Educational Research Association's Special Interest Group on Higher Education.

Selected publications

• Ashwin, P. (2009) Analysing Teaching-Learning Interactions in Higher Education: Accounting for Structure and Agency. London: Continuum.
• Ashwin, (2009) Conceptualising teaching and learning interactions in researching higher education. In M. Tight, K. Mok, J. Huisman, and C. Morphew (eds) The Routledge International Handbook of Higher Education. London: Routledge.
• Ashwin, P. (2008) Accounting for structure and agency in close-up research on teaching, learning and assessment in higher education. International Journal of Educational Research, 47, 3: 151-158.
• Ashwin, P. (2006) Variation in academics' accounts of tutorials, Studies in Higher Education 31, 651-665.
• Ashwin, P. (ed) (2006) Changing Higher Education: The Development of Learning and Teaching. London: Routledge.
• Ashwin, P. (2005) Variation in students' experiences of the Oxford tutorial. Higher Education 50, 631 - 644.
• Ashwin, P. (2003) Peer Support: relations between the context, process and outcomes for the students who are supported. Instructional Science 31:159-173

Martina is supporting the team as the Project Administrator and is is managing the project administration and finance matters.

Dr. Xin Gao is a Research Fellow in the Centre for English Language Education (CELE), School of Education, University of Nottingham. She has been actively involved in the Centre’s research projects such as English language and academic communication: Building a network  for study and  the  professions,  the University-wide academic demands and students’ communicative needs analysis, Investigating Chinese Students’ Beliefs about Language  Learning  in a  Hybrid Immersion Context, and Managing and assessing group discussion in CELE. She has had excellent opportunities to get involved in the education sector both in China and in the UK, which has provided her with a stimulus as well as a laboratory for the research work she is undertaking. Xin Gao has personally researched in the Chinese learner in British higher education, student motivation in learning a second language and been teaching on various undergraduate and postgraduate courses of research methodologies in CELE, School of Education and the Postgraduate School of the University.

Monica McLean is Associate Professor and Reader in Higher Education in the School of Education at the University of Nottingham teaching MA and PhD students. Her previous post (2002-6) was Head of Educational Development in the Learning Institute at the University of Oxford, where she was also course director for the Postgraduate Diploma in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

Her experience in higher education began with a research post at the former Polytechnic of North London where she investigated the 'management of learning' in the institution. Following this, she was appointed as Lecturer/Senior Lecturer in teaching and learning in higher education in the Education Department at Keele University and established and led the Higher Education Postgraduate Certificate and MA in Learning and Teaching in Tertiary Education (1993-2002).

Research interests

Monica's research focuses on pedagogy in higher education and comprises two broad inter-related strands. In the first strand, she locates empirical data about the everyday experiences of university teachers and student within socio-political contexts (national and institutional). She uses sociological theory to explore how policies and practices might result in improved teaching and learning. The second strand focuses on learning, teaching, assessment and curriculum in different disciplines and contexts. She usually undertakes research in this strand in collaboration with practitioners and has published papers on higher education pedagogy with academics in sociology, geography history, information technology, English and medicine. This work has resulted in a number of invitations to seminars, journal articles and most recently a book entitled Pedagogy and the University: Critical Theory and Practice to be published in June 2006.

Other current projects are:  Co-investigator on  the ESRC-DFID project ‘Development Discourses: Higher Education and Poverty Reduction in South Africa’; research on ‘The Production of University English’ funded by the English Subject Centre; and, a CETL-funded project on ‘integrative learning’.

Selected publications

• Abbas, A and McLean, M. (forthcoming) Tackling inequality through quality:  A comparative case study using Bernsteinian concepts in E Unterhalter, and V Carpentier (eds.)  Whose interests are we serving: Global inequalities in higher education , Palgrave (Provisional title)
• McLean, M. and Abbas, A. (Forthcoming, October 2009), The ‘biographical turn’ in university sociology teaching: a Bernsteinian analysis, Special Issue of Teaching in Higher Education
• Booth, A., McLean M. and Walker, M (forthcoming) Self, others and society: A case study of university integrative learning, Studies in Higher Education
• McLean M, Pedagogy and the University:  Critical Theory and Practice. (2008) London:  The Continuum International Publishing Group (paperback edition)
• Bruce, S., Jones K. and McLean, M. (2007) Some Notes on a Project: Democracy and authority in the production of a discipline, Pedagogy:  Critical Studies in the Teaching of Literature, pp. 481-500
• Abbas, A. and McLean, M., (2007) Qualitative research as a method for making just comparisons of pedagogic quality in higher education:  a pilot study, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 28 (6), pp. 723-737
• Jones, K., McLean, M, Amigoni, D. and Kinsman, M. (2005), Investigating the production of university English in mass higher education:  towards an alternative methodology, Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 4 (3), pp. 245-264
• MacMillan, J, and McLean, M. (2005), Making first-year tutorials count:  operationalising the assessment-learning link, Active Learning in Higher Education 6 (2) pp. 94-105
• McLean, M. and Barker, H. (2004) Students making progress and the ‘research-teaching’ nexus, Teaching in Higher Education, 9 (4), pp. 407-419
• Abbas, A. and McLean, M. (2003), Communicative Competence and the Improvement of University Teaching?  Insights from the field, British Journal of Sociology of Education, 24 (1), 69-81
• Abbas, A. and McLean, M., (2001), Becoming Sociologists:  Professional Identity for Part-time Teachers of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology of Education 22 (3), pp. 339-352
• McLean, M. and Bullard, E.J., (2000), Becoming a Teacher: evidence from teaching portfolios, Journal of Teacher Development, Vol. 4, No.1, pp 79-101
• Bullard, E.J. and McLean, M., (2000), ‘Jumping through hoops?- philosophy and practice expressed in geographers’ teaching portfolios’, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, 24(1), pp.37-52
• McLean, M. and Blackwell, R.  (1997) ‘Opportunity Knocks?: Professionalism and Excellence in University Teaching’, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, March Vol.3, No.1, pp 85-99
• Blackwell, R. and McLean, M. (1996) 'Mentoring New University Teachers’, The International Journal of Academic Development, Vol.1, No.2, pp 80-85
• Blackwell, R. and McLean, M.1996) ‘Peer Observation of Teaching and Staff Development’, Higher Education Quarterly, 50: 2, pp. 157-172
• Blackwell, R. and McLean, M. (1996) 'Formal Pupil or Informal Peer', Facets of Mentoring in Higher Education Vol.1 SEDA Paper 94 pp 23-32