‘Care-less whispers’ in the academy during COVID-19: A feminist collaborative autoethnography

This collaborative autoethnography (Bochner and Ellis, 2016) has created a space for three women academics from working-class heritage, navigating the liminal and temporal space of the COVID-19 pandemic within a post-1992 Higher Education Institution, to explore the social relations of one Higher Education Institution and confront their lived experiences. The stories shared in this paper are analysed through a ‘care-less’ (Rogers, 2017) lens, which asks the academy to recognise and confront the duplicity and self-glorification of policy and practice, that might be viewed as acts of normalising and supporting care-less cultures and behaviours. The paper raises questions about social justice, diversity and inclusion, the intersectionality of class and gender, and the inequity of the lived experiences from those who sit on the margins. The paper is the first collaborative writing project from a newly formed staff network of academics who come from working-class backgrounds, and we are intentional in our commitment to support each other as new researchers, giving agency in support of the other to find their voice

Empowering Positive Partnerships: a review of the processes, benefits and challenges of a university and charity social and emotional learning partnership

‘Working in partnership to transform society through education’ is the inspirational mission statement of our Faculty of Education. But what can and does ‘working in partnership’ mean in practice? This paper outlines a partnership development story with a charity and a university Faculty. There is limited research surrounding academic partnerships with social enterprises, although no shortage of claims to be ‘working in partnership’. This is a research informed review of a social and emotional learning partnership between the charity Family Links and Canterbury Christ Church University which we suggest has had a profound and positive impact on individuals and organisations. We draw on theory based partnership evaluation frameworks and partnership review data, including filmed interviews with project participants, training evaluations and action research case studies to tell this story and discuss the processes, benefits and challenges of our partnership. The impact of key actors’ personal responses to participation and subsequent empowerment as agents of change is highlighted. The active nurturing of emotional leaders and agreeing and reviewing protocols at all levels are key review recommendations. The complexity of measuring improved wellbeing outcomes for learning communities as a desired goal is also highlighted

Leadership and on finding my way through self-study

This book has been published by the Self Study of Teacher Education Practices (S-Step) community. My chapter is "Leadership and on finding my way through self-study" draws upon an earlier study by J.Loughran (2014) Learning how to be coached: How a dean learnt with a critical friend

Investing in ourselves as leadership: a guilty pleasure?

Through the real-life stories of women leaders in education, drawn from across the #WomenEd community, this book offers guidance and inspiration on how to rise above challenging situations and find personal and professional growth. It's time to: -Tackle imposter syndrome -Know your worth -Ask for what you need -Call out unacceptable behavior -Put yourself first when necessary -Raise your voice until it's heard It's time to own your journey and your story - it's time to become 10% braver

These are our stories: waving not drowning as we navigate Covid:19 as leadership 'professionals'

This feminist thinkpiece invites the reader to engage with the narratives of five women leading in education. In this piece we are ‘professing’; admitting openly our stories of leadership and the acute tensions experienced during COVID 19. Our provocation is that leadership can be done differently when the emotional dimension is valued; as women leaders we can be that change. Our stories are positioned within the dominant constructs of what it means to be a leadership ‘professional’. This is a leadership discourse that is resolutely masculine, to ‘man up’, to not acknowledge vulnerabilities, conflicts, and complexity. Consequently, stories like these are too often unheard. But the problem does not go away if you stop talking about it. We problematise the view that to profess leadership challenges is unprofessional – irrational, unobjective, emotional. Whilst the contexts of our stories are different, our narratives are united by our commitment to openness, honesty and reflection. Through our storying we begin to disrupt what it means to be ‘profess-ional’ in our education leadership lives