Education / Lifelong Learning (PhD / MPhil) - 2013/2014 entry

An MPhil/PhD is an opportunity to undertake a major piece of research under the supervision of someone with academic expertise in your field. The School of Social Science, History and Philosophy and the Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication, which hosts the degree, offers committed, enthusiastic and dynamic research-based teaching. Our approach is interdisciplinary and is designed to foster a creative environment for graduate research.

As a research student, you will be interested in your own development as a lifelong learner and will be seeking to engage in critical debate and key issues of education and lifelong learning. You will develop your skills as an independent and active learner, and apply your research skills with theoretical perspectives and understandings of lifelong learning. You will be immersed in an academically stimulating and challenging environment, with easy access to high-quality research resources.

There are several academic experts in education, and supervision is offered in a range of areas. These include: lifelong learning; higher education policy and practice; lifelong learning and widening participation policy and practice; workplace learning; professional learning and education; post-compulsory education; adult and continuing education; gender and education; education and social class; and student funding.

Students completing a PhD/MPhil will have developed advanced skills in research and scholarly writing, and will be able to use these to embark on, or further, a career in research. As many of our students study part-time, you have the opportunity to apply your developing research skills in your current career.

You will be able to attend relevant modules run within the School of Social Science, History and Philosophy, as well as other courses for research students.

We have a range of links with other Schools and departments, both in Birkbeck and at other universities, and arrangements for joint supervision according to your interests are therefore possible.

Before submitting an online application you must submit an initial enquiry and a research proposal. This will assist with the process of finding academics with relevant research interests and experience to supervise your project.

Pre-application enquiry - identifying a supervisor:

1. Email a short summary of your proposed research project (1 or 2 paragraphs) to educationphd@bbk.ac.uk. Your project summary will be used to identify appropriate supervisors.

2. If potential supervisors with relevant research interests are available, you will be asked to provide a more detailed project proposal of approximately 2000 words. Some general advice on writing your research proposal can be found here.

3. We will take a decision as to whether or not to invite you to submit a formal application and for interview when we have read your more detailed project proposal. We will notify you as soon as we can about the outcome of this informal stage.

• Professor Claire Callender, BSc, PhD: Higher education policy; funding and finances of higher education students, both in the UK and internationally; widening participation; part-time students.
• Dr Kerry Harman, BA, MCom, PhD: Workplace learning, assessment practices in HE and Work-HE intersections
• Dr Elizabeth Hoult, BA, PGCE, MA, PhD: adult learners in higher education, resilient learning, methodologies which make use of literary texts and literary theory in education research, autobiographical writing in social research, post-structuralist approaches to research in education
• Professor Sue Jackson, BA, MA, PhD: Gender and (post-compulsory) education; lifelong learning and post-compulsory education for adult learners; pedagogies and practices of lifelong learning; learner identities, including gender, social class and age.
• Dr Tom Morton, BEd, MSc, PhD: Professional learning and development for teachers of languages to adults, discursive practices in professional development activity in language education, language teacher cognition and identity.
• Professor Miriam Zukas, BSc: Professional learning and work, doctors’ transitions in learning, transitions in learning and work, academics’ learning and the academic workplace, adult higher education.

• You can start studying in October, January or April.