David Bridges

Position/Status

Professorial Fellow

Academic Groups

Education Equality and Democracy
Commonwealth Centre for Education

E-mail Address

db347@cam.ac.uk

Qualifications

MA (Oxon)
Advanced Diploma in Philosophy of Education (London)
MA in Education (London)
PhD (London)

Profile

David Bridges taught for 22 years at Homerton College, where he became Deputy Principal, until he was elected to a Chair at the University of East Anglia in 1990. There he was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Education and subsequently Pro Vice Chancellor, (1996- 2000). He then took up a position as Executive Director of the newly established Association of Universities in the East of England with a base in the East of England Regional Development Agency, a role that he held until 2006.

He was invited to take on the Chair of the Von Hugel Institute, a College based Multi Disciplinary Research Institute at St Edmunds College, in 2003 (and until 2008) and was elected to a Fellowship of the College. Here he established the Centre for Educational Research and Development which he directed until 2009.

Through the last 25 years Professor Bridges has combined regional and national commitments with an extensive programme of international work. This has included work in a number of Commonwealth countries - Belize, Guyana, South Africa, Zimbabwe & Ghana - as well as in Ethiopia (for the last 23 years), Vietnam, Iran and Lithuania.

He has also maintained an extensive programme of empirically based research and writing in philosophy of education.

Recognition

Emeritus Professor, University of East Anglia
Emeritus Fellow, St Edmund's College, Cambridge
Honorary Vice President, Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain
International Fellow, Lithuanian Academy of Science
Member of 2001 and 2008 Research Assessment Panels for Education.
Council Member of both British and European Educational Research Associations

Research

Interests

Philosophy of education
Philosophy and educational research
Research quality assessment
Higher education
African philosophy of/and education

Research students

Professor Bridges is unable to take on new research students but is happy to provide what support he can to existing research students in the Faculty.

Recent research projects

2009 Consultant to Review of the outcomes of the Research Assessment Exercise 2008, sponsored by British Educational Research Association and Universities Council for the Education of Teachers and directed by Prof John Furlong and Dr Alis Oancea, Oxford University Department of Education (in progress).

2008-11 British Educational Research Association lead in European Educational Research Quality Indicators Project (EERQI) funded under EU Framework 7. www.eerqi.eu/

2006-9 Co Director 'Applied Educational Research for Development: Building Sustainable Capacity for Higher Education in Ethiopia' (DfID/British Council DelPHE Programme, £75,000) St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute. www.ethiopia-ed.net/

2006-7 Director 'Encounters with the pedagogies of higher education' (Higher Education Funding Council/ Aimhigher £80,000) St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute. www.auee.ac.uk/papers, www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/vhi/cerd

2006-7 Director 'The Epistemological Bases of Educational Research' (Economic and SocialResearch Council/ Teaching and learning Research Programme, £15,000) St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute. www.tlrp.org/pub/documents/Bridges%20RB74%20Final.pdf

2006 Director, portfolio of research projects on Widening Participation in Higher Education -- including HE in FE Colleges and work on non participation by Afro-Caribbean boys and Muslim girls £80,000 East of England Development Agency) Association of Universities in the East of England. www.auee.ac.uk/papers, www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/vhi/cerd

2005-6 Co Director 'Representing context in a research archive of educational evaluation studies' (ESRC £195,000) University of East Anglia/Cambridge CARET www.caret.cam.ac.uk/quads/archive.html

2004-5 Director, 'Higher Education Access for Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrant workers' (£45,000 East of England Development Agency), St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute. www.auee.ac.uk/papers, www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/vhi/cerd

2004-5 Director, 'The development of Foundation Degrees in the East of England' (£12,000 East of England Development Agency) St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute. www.auee.ac.uk/papers, www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/vhi/cerd

Director, portfolio of seven research and development projects focussing on (i) widening participation in higher education; (ii) expanding HE service to business; iii) the graduate labour market and (iii) supporting innovation in higher education - funded by the East of England Development Agency and the European Social Fund. Total value £950,000, Association of Universities in the East of England. www.auee.ac.uk/papers

2002-4 Director: 'Whose aspirations? Whose achievements?' An investigation of the life and life style aspirations of 16-19 year olds outside mainstream education. £59,066 (East of England Development Agency) St Edmund's College, Von Hugel Institute www.auee.ac.uk/papers, www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/vhi/cerd

Course Involvement

David Bridges is not taking part in the Faculty's taught courses.

Selected Publications

Books

Bridges, D., Smeyers, P. and Smith, R.D. eds. (2009). 'Evidence-based educational policy': What evidence? What basis? Whose policy?, Oxford, Wiley Blackwell.

Bridges, D. & R.D.Smith eds. (2007), Philosophy and methodology of educational research, Oxford, Blackwell.

Bridges, D., Juceviciene P, Jucevicius R, McLaughlin T.H. and Stankeviciute, J. eds. (2007) Higher education and national development: universities and societies in transition, London, Routledge/Falmer.

Bridges, D. (2003) 'Fiction written under oath?': essays in philosophy and educational research, Dordrecht and New York, Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Bridges, D. ed. (1997) Education, autonomy and democratic citizenship, in the International Library of Philosophy of Education, London, Routledge.

Journal articles

Bridges, D. (2009) Research quality assessment: impossible science, possible art? British Educational Research Journal, 35: 4 pp. 497-517.

Bridges, D. (2006) 'Adaptive preference, justice and identity in the context of widening participation in higher education', Ethics and Education, 1:1, 13-26.

Bridges, D. (2006) 'The practice of higher education: in pursuit of excellence and equity' in Educational Theory 56:4, 371- 386.

Bridges D., Amare Asgedom and Setargew Kenaw, 'From "deep knowledge: to "the light of reason": sources for the philosophy of education in Ethiopia' Journal of Comparative Education, Vol 4 no 4 ( pp 531-544).

Chapters

Bridges, D. (2009) 'Reasoning from educational research to policy' in eds. Smeyers, P. & Depaepe, M. Educational research. Proofs, arguments, and other reasonings: The language of education. Dordrecht: Springer.

Bridges, D. (2009) 'Assessing the quality of research in higher education: the UK Research Assessment Exercise' in Ed T.Besley, Assessing the quality of research in higher education: a comparative study, Rotterdam etc., Sense.

For further publications see research.edu.uea.ac.uk/davidbridges