Dr Shirley Gray
Senior Lecturer in Physical Education

- Moray House School of Education and Sport, ISPEHS
- University of Edinburgh
Contact details
- Tel: +44 (0)131 651 6681
- Email: shirley.gray@ed.ac.uk
Address
- Street
-
Moray House School of Education and Sport, SL
- City
- University of Edinburgh (Holyrood Campus)
- Post code
- EH8 8AQ
Background
Before becoming a lecturer in physical education, I was a secondary school teacher of physical education and then a teaching fellow at the University of Edinburgh. In general, my research attempts to explore how teachers understand and enact curriculum policy, and how they might be supported in their learning to provide their students with positive learning experiences in physical education. More specifically, I am involved in research projects that explore: gender issues in physical education, social and emotional learning in physical education, teaching for personal and social responsibility, pupil motivation and the professional learning of teachers.
Undergraduate teaching
- Professional Practice and Enquiry 2
- Physical Education Perspectives 4: Motor skill acquisition: Non-Linear Pedagogy
- Applied Sports Science 1a 1: Motor skill acquisition – An Introduction to Information Processing and Dynamical Systems Theories of Skill Acquisition
- Physical Education Pedagogy and Curriculum 3
- Physical Education Perspectives 3: Motor skill acquisition – Dynamical Systems, Direct Perception and Constraints
Open to PhD supervision enquiries?
Yes
Areas of interest for supervision
I would be happy to supervise students interested in carrying out research in the following areas:
Gender and education
Motivation and learning
Curriculum and pedagogy
Teacher professional learning
Health and wellbeing in schools
Teaching for personal and social responsibility
Current PhD students supervised
2017 to date Graham Condie: Understanding the lives of young people with cerebral palsy in the context of sport and leisure.
2019 to date Stephanie Hardley: Understanding whole school approaches to promoting health and wellbeing - policy to practice.
2020 to date Ella Williams (MScRes): Understanding girls' experiences of curricular football in physical education.
Past PhD students supervised
2017 Sarah MacIsaac (Bicentennial Fellowship): ‘Healthism discourse in the physical education context’.
2015 Edward Hall (internal funding): ‘Understanding the context and practice of an elite women’s rugby coach over the duration of one season’.
2011 Shaun Phillips (Funded by a College Postgraduate Research Studentship): ‘The influence of carbohydrate supplementation on endurance capacity, sprint performance, and physiological responses to adolescent team games players to prolonged, high-intensity intermittent exercise.’
2011 Danielle Bryant (ESRC funded): 'Teacher stress, learned optimism and coping strategies'.
Research summary
Member of PCRE: www.ed.ac.uk/education/pcre
- Physical education pedagogy
- The physical education curriculum (Health and Wellbeing)
- Pupil experience in physical education
- Gender issues in physical education
- Teacher learning in physical education
- Embodied learning in physical education.
Project activity
Current research projects include:
- A collaborative project, working with colleagues from across the UK, exploring the PE curricula in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland and Wales.
- A Europa UNA funded project to explore and develop critical digital health pedagogies in physical education.
- A series of projects to understand how pre- and in-service teachers understand health and wellbeing, and the ways in which this informs their practice.
- A project with colleagues from Monash University to explore embodiment and embodied learning in physical education.
- Working with colleagues from Leeds Beckett University and Loughborough University, a project working with pre-service PE teachers to explore their awareness and understanding of trauma, how this manifests in physical education, and pedagogical principles that aim to support teacher and pupil wellbeing and learning.
-
A comparative analysis of discourses shaping physical education provision within and across the UK
In:
European Physical Education Review
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1356336X211059440
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Being an early-career teacher-researcher in physical education: A narrative inquiry
In:
Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/25742981.2021.1990779
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Pedagogies of perfection in the postfeminist digital age: Young women’s negotiations of health and fitness on social media
In:
Journal of Gender Studies
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2021.1937083
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Young women, health and physical activity: Tensions between the gendered fields of Physical Education and Instagram
In:
Sport, Education and Society
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2021.1932455
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Doing hybrid management work in elite sport: The case of a head coach in top-level rugby union
In:
Sport Management Review, vol. 24, pp. 271-296
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14413523.2021.1880690
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published) -
Potentialities in health and physical education: Professional boundaries and change agendas
In:
Curriculum Journal
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.96
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Understanding the interpretation and implementation of social and emotional learning in physical education
(20 pages)
In:
Curriculum Journal, vol. N/A, pp. 1-20
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.85
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
A critical discourse analysis of Curriculum for Excellence implementation in four Scottish secondary school case studies
In:
Discourse
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01596306.2019.1710463
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Literacy, numeracy and health and wellbeing across learning: Investigating student teachers' confidence
(12 pages)
In:
International Journal of Educational Research, vol. 100
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2020.101532
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (E-pub ahead of print) -
Exploring the PE contexts and experiences of girls who challenge gender norms in a progressive secondary school
In:
Curriculum Studies in Health and Physical Education, vol. 11, pp. 3-17
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/25742981.2019.1696688
Research output: Contribution to Journal › Article (Published)