Social impact

The social impact of our research includes contributions that we have been making in the following ways:

  • Developing and supporting teachers as learners (Livingston)
  • Shaping Educational Assessment Policy in Small Nations and States (Hayward, Spencer, MacBride)
  • Supporting mediators working with children using picturebooks in contexts of displacement through ‘The Mediator Toolkit’ (Arizpe, McAdam, Farrell, Hirsu)
  • Rethinking Multilingual Cultural Policy and Intercultural Practice in Refugee and Immigrant Contexts (Phipps, Fassetta, Hirsu)

The foci of our work are also expressed in the central degree programmes led by members of CLIP, such as Educational Studies (R Doherty); TESOL (McAdam, Hirsu, Zacharias); Inclusion (Sutherland, Alves, Livingston, McCulloch, Fassetta); Children’s literature and literacies (Arizpe, Farrell, McAdam); Museum Education (Jago); Curriculum, Assessment and Pedagogy (Hayward and Livingston).

In all our work, we emphasize the role of formal and non-formal education in promoting social justice and encouraging inclusion, whether this be in locally, in schools in Scotland (for example, Livingston) and Wales (Hayward and Livingston) or internationally, where our work spans the five continents (see for example, Sutherland, Alves, Gale, Mancy). Livingston’s work with the European Commission, for example, has involved supporting development of teacher education in 27 EU countries.

This group has had major successes in gaining the UNESCO chair, multiple grants from the AHRC as well funding from ESRC, British Academy, British Council, European Commission and Welsh Government. A major £2 million project, Culture for Sustainable and Inclusive Peace (CUSP) is an AHRC Network+ project which works to identify strategies for conflict transformation through strengthening arts and cultural institutions, engaging with young people and encouraging women's participation in leading roles (PI Phipps; Co-Is Arizpe, Fassetta and McAdam).

Recently, members of CLIP have been contributing to knowledge exchange and research around Covid-19 through significant international networks and public engagements, such as:

  • the international networking promoted by the International Educational Assessment Network (IEAN) (Hayward);
  • a contribution by Perry to the International Webinar "Rethinking Sustainability and Development in times of COVID-19";  
  • contributions by Hirsu and Zacharias to a webinar with the British Council on Creative activities for Language Learners at home;
  • a piece by Doherty for the Conversation addressed to parents doing home-schooling
  • contributions to webinar events by Arizpe related to cultural intervention in the pandemic crisis for the Ministry of Culture in Mexico and the Ministry of Education and Cerlalc-Unesco in Colombia;
  • contributions to webinars by Livingston to the European Commission Working Group on Schools with policy representatives from 27 EU countries and to publication of policy guidelines on supporting teacher and school leader careers.