Professor Gerry Czerniawski

Gerry Czerniawski is Professor of Education at the University of East London’s Cass School of Education and Communities where he runs the doctoral programmes in education (PhD and EdD). In addition to his role as a researcher, author and teacher educator he is the Chair of the British Curriculum Forum, Lead Editor of the BERA Blog and a trustee and council member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA).  Gerry passionately worked as a teacher in the multi-cultural environment in the London Borough of Newham for ten years teaching humanities, sociology and business studies at secondary and post-sixteen levels before gradually moving into teaching within Higher Education within both the political sciences and education (The Open University, University of Northampton, London Metropolitan University and London University’s Institute of Education).  He is a founding member of the International Forum for Teacher Educator Development (InFo-TED) and is a National Teaching Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA). 

Professor Gary McCulloch

I am currently the Brian Simon Professor of the History of Education at the UCL Institute of Education (the inaugural holder of this title) and Director of the International Centre for Historical Research in Education (ICHRE) based at the IOE.  I have worked previously at the universities of Leeds, Lancaster and Sheffield as well as the University of Auckland in New Zealand.  My most recent books include Secondary Education and the Raising of the School Leaving Age:  Coming of Age?; The Struggle for the History of Education; Cyril Norwood and the Ideal of Secondary Education, and a large number of other work on the history of secondary education, teachers and curriculum.  I am currently working on a social history of educational studies and research and a history of secondary education since the Second World War.  I am a past president of the UK History of Education Society and a previous Editor of the journal History of Education, and am the current Editor of the British Journal of Educational Studies.

Dr Nicola Rollock

Dr Nicola Rollock is Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education at the University of Birmingham. She is passionate about advancing race equity in education and employment and in understanding how racially minoritised groups navigate and survive racism. She is best known for her ground-breaking research The Educational Strategies of the Black Middle Classes, which received widespread coverage in the press, and the landmark report The Stephen Lawrence Inquiry 10 Years On (published by The Runnymede Trust), the conclusions of which were debated in Parliament. Nicola is Editor of a new journal – Whiteness & Education – which launched in 2016 and author of the book The Colour of Class: the educational strategies of the Black middle classes (with David Gillborn, Carol Vincent and Stephen Ball; Routledge) which documents how Black British middle class families work to navigate their children successfully through the education system. Nicola is a Patron of the Equality Challenge Unit’s Race Equality Chartermark, which aims to improve the experiences, progression and retention of racially minoritised staff and students in higher education and a member of BERA Council. She was included in the 2014 Powerlist of the most influential Black people in the UK and, in October 2015, was selected by the Women of the Year Council judges as a 2015 Woman of Achievement.

Professor Gert Biesta

Gert Biesta (www.gertbiesta.com) is Professor of Education and Director of Research in the Department of Education of Brunel University London. In addition he holds the part-time NIVOZ Professorship for Education at the University of Humanistic Studies in the Netherlands and has visiting affiliations with ArtEZ Institute of the Arts, the Netherlands, and NLA University College, Bergen, Norway. Since 2015 he is a member of the Education Council of the Netherlands, the advisory body for the Dutch government and parliament. His work focuses on the theory of education and the theory and philosophy of educational and social research. In recent years he has published on such topics as curriculum, teaching, teacher agency, democratic education and lifelong learning. His 2014 book The Beautiful Risk of Education won the 2014 Outstanding Book Award of the American Educational Research Association (Division B). His latest book, The Rediscovery of Teaching, is due to be published by Routledge in 2017.