Broadcast: News items

The Department of Education is to welcome two new professors this autumn.

Professor Colleen McLaughlin and Professor Penny Jane Burke will play a significant leadership role in the Department and will contribute to the strategic development of the School of Education and Social Work (ESW).

Professor Colleen McLaughlin, who joins Sussex on 1 October, is Director of International Initiatives and Deputy Head of the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge, and a member of its Commonwealth Centre for Education.

A former school teacher and local-authority advisor, her major areas of work have been in practitioner research within schools-university partnerships, counselling, care and the personal-social aspects of education, HIV/AIDS education and international educational reform.

Professor McLaughlin’s recent research projects have been on bullying and pupils with special educational needs and or disability; HIV/AIDS education; the school’s contribution to mental health and effective counselling interventions with children and young people.

She is an editor of the Educational Action Research Journal.

Professor Penny Jane Burke, who takes up her new post on 1 November, is currently Professor of Education at the University of Roehampton in London, where she is Director of the Centre for Educational Research in Equalities, Policy and Pedagogy.

Previously she was Head of School, Educational Foundations and Policy Studies (EFPS) and Reader of Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Professor Burke is dedicated to the development of methodological and pedagogical frameworks that support critical understanding of equity and social justice in higher education studies.

Her new book The Right to Higher Education: Beyond widening participation presents an overview and critique of policy and literature on widening participation. Her other books include Accessing Education: Effectively widening participation (2002) and Reconceptualising Lifelong Learning: Feminist interventions (with Sue Jackson, 2007).

Professor Suzy Braye, Acting Head of the School of Education and Social Work, says: “These two new appointments will further strengthen our leading programmes in international education, education studies and teacher education.

“Our two new professors will also bring valuable new perspectives to the work of the Education department’s three research centres: the Centre for International Education, the Centre for Higher Education & Equity Research, and the Centre for Inquiry & Research in Cognition, Learning & Teaching.

“In addition, collaboration across the School promotes the interdisciplinary study of childhood and youth – as well as interprofessional policy and practice in services for children - and I look forward to the contributions that Colleen and Penny Jane will bring to these developments also.”