Research

Staff research interests

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Dr Andy Hancock

Lecturer in Primary Education

Education, Teaching and Leadership (ETL)

Email: andy.hancock@ed.ac.uk

Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6635

Location:

Charteris Land

Background

I started teaching in multilingual primary schools in London before working for two years in a State Secondary school in Karoi, Zimbabwe as Head of Department for Social Studies. In 1990 I moved to Scotland to become a peripatetic support teacher to bilingual and traveller pupils in primary and secondary schools across Stirling, Clackmannan and Falkirk. For a short period I was seconded as part of a regional anti-bullying project investigating racist incidents and developing anti-racist support materials for schools. I was also involved in a collaborative curriculum development initiative at the Central Scotland Chinese complementary school. Prior to coming to the University of Edinburgh I was Manager of the Bilingual Support Service in North Lanarkshire. My PhD research investigated Chinese children's experiences of biliteracy learning in the home, primary schools and Chinese schools in Scotland.

I am Co-Director of the Centre for Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES) and a visiting lecturer at the University of Strasbourg.

I am in the process of editing a book with Xiaolan Curdt-Christiansen from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore entitled Learning Chinese in Diasporic Communities to be published by John Benjamins.

Qualifications:

1979 BA (Hons) Economic History/Geography. Leeds University
1982 Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Primary). Didsbury College of Education
1991 RSA Diploma in Teaching English Across the Curriculum in Multilingual Schools. Moray House College, Heriot-Watt University
2001 MSc Advanced Professional Studies. University of Edinburgh
2010 PhD University of Edinburgh

Principal interests

Research interests include:

English as an additional language (EAL)
multilingual literacy practices
Chinese children's experiences of biliteracy learning
bilingualism and social justice
student teachers' understandings of linguistically diverse primary school classrooms

I am happy to supervise any research under the headings above.

Current and recent research

Student teachers’ understandings of multilingual primary classrooms. Collaboration with Christine Hélot and Andrea Young, University of Strasbourg. Refer to Hancock, A. (2011) Empowering student teachers to meet the challenge of multilingual schools in Scotland. In Hélot, C and Majia, A-M. (eds) Empowering Teachers Across Cultures (pp.45-57). Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Early Years Writer in Residence Project Evaluation. With Moira Leslie. Funder: Scottish Book Trust. Full Report published 2011. http://www.scottishbooktrust.com/early-years-writer-in-residence

Early Years Writer in Residence Project Evaluation: Follow up evaluation. With Moira Leslie. Report forthcoming.

2012 Research in collaboration with the Institute of Education, Nanyang University, Singapore comparing bilingual and monolingual literacy development in primary schools in Scotland, Singapore and China.

2013 Evaluation of Letterbox Club Scotland. With Moira Leslie. Funder: Booktrust.

Publications

Publications list for Dr Andy Hancock

Teaching

I teach languages and literacies on the following Initial Teacher Education programmes:

BEd Primary Education
PGDE Primary Education

I am a course organiser on the MEd/Diploma Additional Support for Learning (Bilingual Learners). The following courses are now delivered as blended learning:

The Developing Bilingual Learner
Bilingualism and Other Additional Support Needs

http://www.ed.ac.uk/schools-departments/education/graduate-school/taught-degrees/asl/programmes-available/overview