Academic biography

Maria Barry, PhD, is Assistant Professor in history education and global citizenship education in the School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies in DCU's IoE.  Maria is also a co-Director of DCU's Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education. Prior to joining DCU, Maria worked as a post primary school teacher and in Trócaire's (NGDO) development education team.

Currently, Maria and her colleague Dr. Benjamin Mallon sit on the Management Committee for Irish Aid's strategic programme for GCE across primary education, Global Village. This programme is supported and overseen by a consortium of four partners - DCU, the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO), the Irish Primary Principal's Network (IPPN) and Trócaire. Maria is co-Principal Investigator (co-PI) for the programme's research activities that include a national survey of Global Citizenship Education and Irish primary teachers and a scoping study on the possibilities and challenges for GCE in Early Childhood Education.

Previously, Maria was co-PI on the INOVATE project with Dr. Machowska-Kosciak.  Funded through the National Integration Fund 2021-2023, this project sought to incorporate authentic minority ethnic young people’s voices within teacher education programmes at both pre-service and in-service levels. One research output from the project is 'Brave', a 4-part series of digital storytelling videos, featuring Ashley, Moses and Roxanna, as they explore the themes of identity, belonging, racism and creating a better future.

In 2020, Maria completed her PhD fellowship with the Centre for Human Rights & Citizenship Education.  Her doctoral studies focussed on global citizenship education teaching and learning practices in post primary schools.  Other scholarly interests include; dialogue and discussion in the classroom, making connections between history education and citizenship education, cultural diversity in school history, student and youth participation, creative and participatory research methodology and dissemmination.

Maria has served on a number of Boards and committees in the area of history education and development education over 20 years.  At the moment,  Maria is sitting on the NCCA's development group for Leaving Certificate History. She is also a member of the DICE and Ubuntu networks and IDEA.