A Political Sociology of Education Policy
The provision of and access to school places in England is structured through segregation, and yet influential research takes place without due recognition of how selection and choice operate. For...
College of Reviewers
Helen Gunter, Professor
Professor Emerita at University of Manchester
Helen M Gunter is Professor Emerita in the Manchester Institute of Education, University of Manchester, UK. She is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, and recipient of the BELMAS Distinguished Service Award 2016. Her research focuses on the political sociology of knowledge production in the field of education policy. Her most recent book is A Political Sociology of Education Policy (2023, Policy Press).
Helen Gunter's contributions
What schools want: Recruiting senior leaders in England
In an increasingly fragmented and competitive education system, recruiting the ‘best’ school leaders is based on fabricated notions of leadership. A recent job advert earned derision for being...
Continue reading blog post
Don’t look up: Ignoring the looming crisis in public education
In the movie satire Don’t Look Up, a deadly comet threatens to hit earth. Two astronomers recognise the impending disaster, but their warnings remain unheeded. The US President, experts and the...
Continue reading blog post
Even More Leadership? A time to reflect
In 2005 I gave my inaugural lecture entitled More Leadership. Having now taken early retirement (to get on with my work), my professor emerita lecture reviews these ideas under the title Even More...
Continue reading blog postBubble, toil and trouble: School leadership as Shakespearean tragedy in and after Covid-19
In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the witches exacerbate divisions, push ambition through brute force, hierarchy and power; their interventions end in the wicked destruction of leadership potential and...
Continue reading blog post
Could Dido Harding move into education next?
Dido Harding was appointed as a Conservative peer (Baroness Harding of Winscombe) by then prime minister David Cameron in 2014. She is head of the NHS test and trace programme, and has been...
Continue reading blog postBERA Appoints Members to the College of Reviewers
As an organisation we are committed to principles of openness, integrity and transparency and seek to uphold ethical values in all our activities and processes. The newly established BERA College...
College of Reviewers
The BERA College of Reviewers is a group comprised of high quality academic reviewers including practitioners and policy makers who draw on research evidence.