Dr Andrea R. English (SFHEA)

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Education (Associate Professor)

Background

I have been teaching and researching in philosophy of education for more than twenty years. Prior to coming to the University of Edinburgh as a Chancellor's Fellow in Philosophy of Education in 2014, I taught at Mount Saint Vincent University, Canada and Humboldt University Berlin, Germany, in both teacher education and graduate education programmes. I received my doctorate in philosophy of education from Humboldt University Berlin in Germany.

Responsibilities & affiliations

  • President (Elect) of the John Dewey Society for the Study of Education and Culture
  • Editor-In Chief of IMPACT: philosophical perspectives on education policy in The Journal of Philosophy of Education
  • Member of Advance HE Scotland's 'Developing an Anti-Racist Curriculum Project'
  • Executive Member of The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Briatain
  • Associate Editor of Dewey Studies. 
  • Lead the international research network on Listening in Education: "Listening Study Group".
  • Lead the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain-Edinburgh Branch. For Branch Events, including our Seminar Series & Branch Conferences, visit the PESGB website.
  • Teacher Education Coordinator for the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain 
  • Coordinator of the Philosophy of Education Research Group at the Moray House School of Education: https://www.ed.ac.uk/education/rke/centres-groups/perg

Undergraduate teaching

I have designed or co-designed and implemented the following undergraduate (ITE) courses:

  • Philosophy of Education: An Introduction
  • Advanced Philosophy of Education
  • Learners, Learning and Interdisciplinarity (MA-Primary Education)

Guest Lecturer

  • "Research with Children: Listening as Researcher and Teacher," (Bachelor of Education Programme)

Postgraduate teaching

I have designed or co-designed and taught the following postgraduate courses:

  • Relationality, Creative Practice and Education (Edinburgh Futures Institute)
  • Critical thinking, teaching and learning (MSc Education)
  • Inclusive Pedagogy (MSc Inclusive Education Programme)
  • 'Promoting active and engaged student learning' (Post-Graduate Certificate in Academic Practice: Foundations of Academic Practice)
  • Ethics, epsitemology and education
  • John Dewey, Uncertainty and Education
  • Critical Thinking and Educational Ideals
  • Issues in Teaching and Learning: Negative Experience and Education
  • Lehren, Lernen, Negativitaet 

Guest Lecturer

  • "Learning from Failure", in An introduction to Digital Games Based Learning (Digital Education Programme)
  • "Virtue Epistemology," in The Nature of Enquiry (MSc Educational Research)
  • "Listening and Inclusion" (MSc Inclusive Education Programme)
  • "Group Work" in Engaging with Student Diversity (PGCAP-Institute for Academic Development)
  • "Critical Theory", in The Nature of Inquiry (MSc Educational Research)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I am happy to supervise students interested in the topics related to those menitioned in my research section.

Current PhD students supervised

  • Amambo Essien: Critical thinking and Decolonising the curriculum in primary education in Nigeria

Past PhD students supervised

  • Christine Mavroupoula: 'Well-being, open-mindedness and virtue in education'
  • Diana Murdoch- 'An exploration of the phenomenon of inclusive education in the life-world of young people, their families and their teachers in a Scottish secondary school'
  • Aline Nardo- 'Evolution and Education'
  • Felix Penzias -'The learning Journey' (External Supervisor, Masters thesis, University of Vienna)

Research summary

What is productive struggle in human learning? and, How can teachers support it? These questions animate the research agenda in my 'Productive Struggle Lab'. The lab pursues these questions from the perspective of anti-oppressive, democratic philosophies of education, tracing the idea of 'struggle in learning' through the educational works of eminent philosopher John Dewey, and connecting it to contemporary decolonising, critical pedagogies, as well as to 19th Century German philosophies of education (especially Humboldt and Herbart). 

The questions drive inquiry behind my funded projects,  as well as my research-led post-graduate, teacher-education and HE teacher continuing professional development courses. My lab approaches these questions drawing on the methods of philosophical analysis and qualitative empirical approaches.  We examine how teachers can initiate and foster all students' productive struggle, and associated experiences of uncertainty, as an essential part of promoting transformative learning and critical thinking. A central focus is on the role of teacher listening in supporting students to struggle productively. This research strand draws on dialogic and relational pedagogy. My research links the concept and experience of struggle to discourses in inclusive education, creative practice and aesthetic experience, and philosophy of extended cognition, among other areas. My interdisciplinary empirical projects have analysed struggle in learning  in STEM, especially mathematics, physics education, and have developed AI for identifying student struggle in online learning contexts.

Further, we also investigate productive struggle as part of the experience of teachers when learning to teach as a reflective practice

The Lab  actively connects these questions to the means of supporting rehumanisation and the decolonisation of education,. The concepts and educational ideas around productive struggle and teachers' pedagogical listening  are central to my contributions as a core group member of the AdvanceHE working group on 'Developing an Anti-racist Curriculum' in Higher and Further Education in Scotland.  

Recent Publications: 

 

 

 

Invited speaker

Keynotes and Invited Talks (selected)

  •  The Future of Education in a Changing World, Keynote panel  at British Educational Research Association (BERA) & World Education Research Association (WERA) Joint Conf., 2024
  •  Uncertainty, Progress and Education, University of Zurich International Conference, Switzerland, 2024
  • Making Space for Listening to Children, Teacher conference, Hangzhou, China, 2023

  • Let’s talk about it: Deepening students’ mathematical sense-making by attending to teachers’ listening (with A. Hintz),  ECHO elementary Math project, sponsored by LANL Foundation and Project ECHO at University of New Mexico,  USA 2023

  • “Dewey, Existential Uncertainty and Non-affirmative democratic education”, Keynote Speaker, Conference on ‘Democratic Education Revisited’ John Dewey Center of Switzerland, June. (St. Gallen, Switzerland), 2022

  • Dewey, Uncertainty and Non-affirmative democratic education” The Center for Knowledge, Technology and Society’s Annual Epistemology Lecture, University of California Irvine, School of Humanities, USA, 2022

  • Dialogic Teaching and Moral Learning,  Relationality in Education of/towards Morality, Travna University International Conference, Slovakia, 2018

  • Transformation in Teaching: A Deweyan Perspective,  University of Kyoto, Japan, 2017
  • What is Transformation?: Crossing Boundaries, Understanding transformation for teachers, University of Strathclyde, 2017
  • Discontinuity in Learning as a Lens for Analysing Student Learning in the Context of Moral Education: A Qualitative Study for ETiK-International-Edinburgh, Warsaw, 2015