Amy Aukland (PhD student) (MA (Cantab), PGCE (Secondary Mathematics), MSc)
Thesis title: Spotlight on Teachers: Policy and Practice in Scotland and Wales
PhD Education (ESRC Funded)
- Moray House School of Education and Sport
Contact details
- Email: a.r.aukland@sms.ed.ac.uk
PhD supervisors:
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education and Sport
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
I am currently working towards my PhD in Education at Moray House. The project is a comparative case study that explores the extent to which secondary school teachers in Scotland and Wales feel supported to develop as good teachers within their education policy environment. The research is fully-funded by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS) on behalf of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).
Prior to starting the PhD, I completed my MSc in Education at Moray House (with distinction in all taught components and dissertation). My dissertation explored the construction of teacher professionalism in a selection of recent Welsh education policies, motivated by my previous work as a teacher and Head of Mathematics at a comprehensive secondary school in North Wales.
My main academic interests lie in the Philosophy of Education (my academic background is a First Class degree in Philosophy from The University of Cambridge), with a particular focus on the role of the teacher, including what it means to be a good teacher, as well as issues of teacher professionalism and underlying aims of education. However, my PhD is also heavily focused on education policy in Scotland and Wales, and I am interested in interrogating the ways in which policy is used to construct particular images of the good teacher and the extent to which practising teachers feel they are supported (or not!) by current policy.