Episode One: “Introducing your Sociological Imagination” (Mills) Dr. Shelli-Ann Garland
Let's Talk About Sociology of EducationShow Notes
My guest in this podcast episode is Dr. Shelli-Ann Garland. Shelli-Ann is a teaching fellow in the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin and a research assistant on the @DEEPEN project Her research interests include Sociology and Foundations of Education, Educational Stratification, Teacher Education, Lifelong Learning and Volunteer Leadership.
In this episode Shelli-Ann introduces some of the main Sociology of Education theories and how they look in “real-time” and describes what our “sociological imagination” is, “the ability to see things socially and how they interact and influence each other”. We talk about Shelli-Ann’s own research on volunteer identity, informal learning and community based learning, connections and disconnects between policy and practice and how Covid has impacted how we teach Sociology of Education. Shelli-Ann has some questions for me too around my own research and sociological connections between family and community and the school.
More from Let's Talk About Sociology of Education
In this episode I chat to Anne Marie Kavanagh (PhD, FHEA). Anne Marie’s episode is called Decolonising the curriculum: Creating a more inclusive, diverse, and critically-engaged approach to education. We discuss the concept of decolonizing the curriculum and its importance in creating a more inclusive and diverse educational approach and Anne Marie explains that decolonizing involves questioning what counts as knowledge and whose knowledge is centralized in the curriculum.
In this episode I speak to Dr. Alison Egan in an episode entitled Navigating the Third Space in Higher Education Institutions where we discuss the concept of the "third space" in higher education, which is the juxtaposition of academic and administrative roles. Alison Egan, PhD is a Director of IT & eLearning at Marino Institute of Education, Dublin, Ireland since 2008. Her research interests are focused on digital literacy; artificial intelligence, technological self-efficacy; national and international digital education policies and technology enhanced learning. She completed her PhD in 2018 at Trinity College Dublin, by conducting longitudinal quantitative research into how technology was used by pre-service teachers during their undergraduate programmes. She is Vice-President of the Irish Learning Technology Association (ILTA) and Chair of the Consultative Council of Society for IT in Teacher Education (SITE), USA.
In this episode I speak to Niall Mulpeter in an episode entitled From Policy to Practice: Enacting Values in Publicly Managed Schools through Communities of Practice and Professional Learning Communities. Niall is an Educational Policy and Development Officer with Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) and a final-year PhD scholar at the University of Limerick School of Education. With over 20 years of experience in education, Niall’s expertise lies in Values Education, Curriculum Development, and the enactment of values-based policy in schools—areas in which he has been published. Niall explains his interest in sociology of education, focusing on educational structures, policies, and student learning, identity, and inclusion.
In this episode I speak to Professor Dympna Devine in an episode entitled, "What has social justice got to do with pedagogy?" a title which Dympna explains was inspired by a question from a student in a module that she taught on equalities and social justice.
Declan Qualter is the Practice Placement Supervisor for the BEd with Gaeilge and/or Modern Languages Programme in the UCD School of Education. He also teaches on the Professional Masters in Education programme. Declan is a PhD candidate in UCD, with his doctoral research focusing on parental involvement in children's home-based digital learning.