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Dr Sophie Ward's Outputs (26)

Compassionate inquiry: digital storytelling and the ethics of care (2024)
Journal Article
Ward, S., Dragas, T., Mazzoli Smith, L., Ross, K., & Miao, Z. (online). Compassionate inquiry: digital storytelling and the ethics of care. Teaching in Higher Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2024.2394600

In this paper we identify the use of Digital Storytelling (DS) as a mode of pedagogy aligned with an ethics of care. We consider how DS, as summative assessment, may foreground care ethics such as attentiveness, responsiveness, and trust. Our interes... Read More about Compassionate inquiry: digital storytelling and the ethics of care.

Exploring the religious and spiritual trajectory of cathedral choristers in England (2023)
Journal Article
Dong, L., & Ward, S. (2023). Exploring the religious and spiritual trajectory of cathedral choristers in England. Journal of Beliefs and Values, 44(4), 502-516. https://doi.org/10.1080/13617672.2023.2267928

The present paper reports findings from interviews with thirty ex-choristers from cathedrals and collegiate chapels in England, aged from eighteen to eighty. These interviews explored choristers’ religious commitments before entering choir school and... Read More about Exploring the religious and spiritual trajectory of cathedral choristers in England.

The Benefits of Music Workshop Participation for Pupils’ Wellbeing and Social Capital: The In2 Music Project Evaluation (2021)
Journal Article
Ward, S., James, S., James, K., Brown, C., Kokotsaki, D., & Wigham, J. (2023). The Benefits of Music Workshop Participation for Pupils’ Wellbeing and Social Capital: The In2 Music Project Evaluation. Arts Education Policy Review, 124(1), 37-47. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2021.1903640

This paper reports on the evaluation of the In2 music project in Darlington, England. The project ran for seven weeks from January – March 2020 and involved Year 6 pupils from four primary schools (n = 103) and Year 7 pupils from one secondary school... Read More about The Benefits of Music Workshop Participation for Pupils’ Wellbeing and Social Capital: The In2 Music Project Evaluation.

Education at the End of History: A Response to Francis Fukuyama (2020)
Journal Article
Ward, S. (2021). Education at the End of History: A Response to Francis Fukuyama. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 53(2), 160-170. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1767073

By 1989, fascism had long been defeated in Europe, and reforms in the Soviet Union appeared to signify the collapse of communist ideology, prompting Francis Fukuyama to famously declare the ‘end of history’. Since then, neoliberalism has been rolled... Read More about Education at the End of History: A Response to Francis Fukuyama.

The Play is a Prison: the discourse of Prison Shakespeare (2018)
Journal Article
Ward, S., & Connolly, R. (2020). The Play is a Prison: the discourse of Prison Shakespeare. Studies in Theatre and Performance, 40(2), 128-144. https://doi.org/10.1080/14682761.2018.1560999

The relationship between Shakespeare and prison was brought into sharp focus during Shakespeare’s recent quad-centenary with a succession of works exploring Shakespeare’s value for the prison population. In this paper, we take this spike in activity... Read More about The Play is a Prison: the discourse of Prison Shakespeare.

Boal, Theatre in Education and the Promotion of Fundamental British Values (2018)
Journal Article
Ward, S. (2018). Boal, Theatre in Education and the Promotion of Fundamental British Values. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 16(3), 38-67

This paper offers a critical analysis of the imposition of Fundamental British Values (FBVs) in schools and nurseries as part of Prevent, the UK’s counter-terrorism strategy, and compares the rationale of this policy with the motivation for Theatre i... Read More about Boal, Theatre in Education and the Promotion of Fundamental British Values.

In Search of Progress: Female Academics after Jane Eyre (2018)
Journal Article
Ward, S. (2018). In Search of Progress: Female Academics after Jane Eyre. Other Education, 7(2), 55-74

Charlotte Brontë’s novel about a female educator, Jane Eyre, was published in 1847. This current paper asks: what progress has been enjoyed by female academics since Charlotte’s day? Although women are no longer disbarred from academia, there is inte... Read More about In Search of Progress: Female Academics after Jane Eyre.

Using Shakespeare's Plays to Explore Education Policy Today: Neoliberalism through the lens of Renaissance humanism (2016)
Book
Ward, S. (2016). Using Shakespeare's Plays to Explore Education Policy Today: Neoliberalism through the lens of Renaissance humanism. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315696850

Shakespeare is revered as the greatest writer in the English language, yet education reform in the English-speaking world is informed primarily by the ‘market order’, rather than the kind of humanism we might associate with Shakespeare. By considerin... Read More about Using Shakespeare's Plays to Explore Education Policy Today: Neoliberalism through the lens of Renaissance humanism.

What is ‘policy’ and what is ‘policy response’? An illustrative study of the implementation of the Leadership Standards for Social Justice in Scotland (2015)
Journal Article
Ward, S., Bagley, C., Lumby, J., Hamilton, T., Woods, P., & Roberts, A. (2016). What is ‘policy’ and what is ‘policy response’? An illustrative study of the implementation of the Leadership Standards for Social Justice in Scotland. Educational Management Administration & Leadership, 44(1), 43-56. https://doi.org/10.1177/1741143214558580

This article examines ‘policy’ and ‘policy response’ through documentary analysis and an illustrative study of policy implementation. Our approach is informed by Foucault’s (2009) theory that power relations in society are conditioned by a culturally... Read More about What is ‘policy’ and what is ‘policy response’? An illustrative study of the implementation of the Leadership Standards for Social Justice in Scotland.

Uncovering Policy Response: Primary School Principals in the Netherlands and the Professions in Education Act (2014)
Journal Article
Smit, J., Bagley, C., & Ward, S. (2014). Uncovering Policy Response: Primary School Principals in the Netherlands and the Professions in Education Act. Sodobna pedagogika, 65/131(4), 30-47

Summary: The Netherlands currently has one of the most decentralised education systems in Europe, with a high level of school autonomy and no formal governance levels between the national government and the school. Consequently, school principals hav... Read More about Uncovering Policy Response: Primary School Principals in the Netherlands and the Professions in Education Act.

The role of the Arts in the Society (2014)
Book Chapter
Ward, S. (2015). The role of the Arts in the Society. In M. Fleming, L. Bresler, & J. O'Toole (Eds.), The Routledge International Handbook of Arts and Education (106-121). Routledge

School Leadership for Equity: Lessons from the Literature (2014)
Journal Article
Ward, S., Bagley, C., Lumby, J., Woods, P., Hamilton, T., & Roberts, A. (2015). School Leadership for Equity: Lessons from the Literature. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 19(4), 333-346. https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2014.930520

Responding to Thrupp's [2003. “The School Leadership Literature in Managerialist Times: Exploring the Problem of Textual Apologism.” School Leadership & Management: Formerly School Organisation 23 (2): 169] call for writers on school leadership to of... Read More about School Leadership for Equity: Lessons from the Literature.

Education and the 'New Totalitarianism': How standards for reporting on empirical studies of education limit the scope of academic research and communication (2013)
Book Chapter
Ward, S. (2014). Education and the 'New Totalitarianism': How standards for reporting on empirical studies of education limit the scope of academic research and communication. In P. Smeyers, & M. Depaepe (Eds.), Educational research : material culture and its representation (71-85). Springer Verlag. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-03083-8_5

Advances in our understanding of human cognition highlight the utility of the arts to create an inter-subjective feeling of unity, which arises when our minds attune plastically to each other and jointly attend a single event (Brandt PA, Form and mea... Read More about Education and the 'New Totalitarianism': How standards for reporting on empirical studies of education limit the scope of academic research and communication.

Creativity, Freedom and the Crash: how the concept of creativity was used as a bulwark against communism during the Cold War, and as a means to reconcile individuals to neoliberalism prior to the Great Recession (2013)
Journal Article
Ward, S. (2013). Creativity, Freedom and the Crash: how the concept of creativity was used as a bulwark against communism during the Cold War, and as a means to reconcile individuals to neoliberalism prior to the Great Recession. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, 11(3), 110-126

At first glance, creativity in the classroom and global capitalism have little in common, yet scratch beneath the surface of ‘creativity’ and we find a discourse of economic and cultural freedom that was used as a bulwark against communism during the... Read More about Creativity, Freedom and the Crash: how the concept of creativity was used as a bulwark against communism during the Cold War, and as a means to reconcile individuals to neoliberalism prior to the Great Recession.

The Enactment of Metalearning Capacity: Using drama to help raise students' awareness of the self as learner (2013)
Journal Article
Ward, S., Connolly, R., & Meyer, J. (2013). The Enactment of Metalearning Capacity: Using drama to help raise students' awareness of the self as learner. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 50(1), 14-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/14703297.2012.746517

This paper reports on a study that investigated understanding of learning amongst a cohort of students entering higher education by engaging them, via drama-based activities, with the process of their own learning (metalearning). The study combined M... Read More about The Enactment of Metalearning Capacity: Using drama to help raise students' awareness of the self as learner.