Research interests

My main research interests lie in mapping how pre-service teachers, teachers and leaders of schools in post-primary education in Ireland and across the world have become curriculum makers.  I am interested in the curriculum culture and the identity of the teacher being proposed in curriculum reform, not only in the Republic of Ireland but across the world.  The theoretical framework I am navigating is taken from the work of Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus (2003).  It draws on concepts such as striated and smooth space, difference, both degree and kind, and nomad.  This study emerges from my doctoral thesis which called on further research to map the changes taking place in lower secondary education as a result of the new Junior Cycle curriculum.  It asks how are teachers approaching Learning Outcomes and what methodology, assessment, both formative and summative, are they engaging with to make the educational encounter a more student-centred and holistic affair.  This interest in curriculum making and teacher identity has allowed me to connect with universitiies in The Netherlands, Portugal, Northern Ireland and develop what support is needed to assist the progression of curriculum design/making capacities of teachers in International/European curriculum contexts?

I am also engaged in working on research on bullying, engaging now in the ORBIT project which explores bullying and religion.  I have just finished a three year project in a day and boarding school in Dublin to study how they can approach the problem of bullying in the school.  This study used a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, which is flexible and inclusive (Stoudt et al., 2010; O’Brien, Moules and Munn-Giddings., 2018). I have linked with Dr Niamh O'Brien from Anglia Ruskin University, Essex, Great Britain for this project and we hope to extend this to other schools throughout Ireland in the next year.