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Colleen McLaughlin

Position/Status

Professor, Director of Educational Innovation

E-mail Address

cm10009@cam.ac.uk

Qualifications

BEd, MEd, MA (Cantab), PhD

Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations

  • Fellow of the Royal Society for the Arts
  • Fellow of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy
  • British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy
  • British Educational Research Association

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Academic Area/Links

  • Educational reform and development
  • Culture, politics and global justice
  • Care in education, counselling, psychology and well-being
  • Teacher action and practitioner research
  • Personal, social and emotional development and education

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Profile

Professor Colleen McLaughlin is Director of Education Innovation and leader of the Educational Reform and Innovation team, She has held various leadership roles: Head of Department at the University of Sussex and Deputy Head of Faculty at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education. She taught in secondary schools and worked as an advisor in a local education authority before coming to the then Institute of Education in 1985. Her recent research has focused on wellbeing in schools (for the Welsh Government and the Nuffield Foundation); relationships in schools; sexuality and HIV related education in Africa (for the Commonwealth Centre for Education); bullying and pupils with special educational needs and disabilities; counseling in schools; and aspects of personal, social and emotional development in schools. Support for international educational reform is now a major area of work. She has been involved as an advisor to governments and NGOs on the personal and social dimensions of schooling.


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Research Topics

  • Emotional well-being, relationships and adolescent mental health
  • Counselling in schools
  • Health and HIV/Aids education, particularly in Sub Saharan African contexts
  • School-university partnerships in educational research
  • School exclusions
  • Personal, social and emotional education in schools
  • Bystander behaviour in school bullying

Current Research Projects

  • 2015-16 With Prof Robin Banarjee, University of Sussex. Building emotional resilience in primary schools. Systematic review of the evidence on the efficacy of interventions for the Welsh Government Dept of Education.
  • 2013-16 International advisor - Engaging Young People in Sexuality Education Research Project. Australian Research Council linkage project (Universities of S. Australia, Deakin and Shine)
  • 2015-16 With Prof Robin Banarjee. Improving Mental Health and Well-Being in Brighton Schools. Brighton and Hove Public Health Project. Evaluation of three school pilot.
  • 2011-16 The research and development of educational policy and practice in Kazakhstan. Research and development project, in collaboration with Cambridge International Examinations

Completed in the last 5 years

  • 2010-11 With Carol Holliday and Barbie Clark. A review  of research on Research on Effective Counselling Interventions with Children and Young People for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP).
  • 2010-11 With Richard Byers, Caroline Oliver and Rosie Peppin Vaughan. Review of research on bullying and special educational needs and disability for the Department of Children Schools and Families’ response to the Lamb Inquiry Special Educational Needs and Parental Confidence. Consultant to the project. In association with the National Children’s Bureau, London.
  • 2008-13 With Susan Kiragu and Mary Cobbett, University of Cambridge Faculty of Education: HSRC, Cape Town: the Institute for Educational Development, Aga Khan University, Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania: Cape Coast University, Ghana.
  • ASKAIDS, African Sexual Knowledges of AIDS. Commonwealth Centre for Education. A three and subsequent six country study
  • 2007- 2009 School Experiences and Mental Health Outcomes Amongst 10-14 Year Olds: A Review of the Effects of School Transfers, Transitions and Other Potentially Relevant School-Related Factors. A strand of a national programme of research on the time trends in Adolescent Mental Health commissioned and funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

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Course Involvement


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Recent Publications

McLaughlin, C. (forthcoming). ‘Researching practice as education and reform.’ In M. Peters, B. Cowie and I. Menter  (Eds.),  A Companion to Research in Teacher Education. Springer

McLaughlin, C. and Ayubayeva, N. (2015) ‘It is the research of self experience’: Feeling the value in action research. International Journal of Educational Action Research. 23,1, 51-67

McLaughlin, C. and Swartz, S. (2015) Inviting Backchat: How schools and communities in Ghana, Swaziland and Kenya support children to contextualize knowledge and create agency through sexuality education. International Journal of Educational Development. Special Edition on Extreme Settings edited by Catherine Campbell and Morten Skovdal. 41, March 2015, pp. 208–216

McLaughlin, C., Cordingley, P., McLellan, R. and Baumfield, V. (2015) Making a difference - Turning teacher learning inside out. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

McLaughlin, C. (ed.) (2015) The Connected School: A Design for Well-Being – Supporting Children and Young People in Schools to Flourish, Thrive and Achieve, London: Pearson/National Children’s Bureau.

McLaughlin, C. and Holliday, C. (2014) Therapy with Children and Young People: Integrative Counselling in Schools and Other Settings. London: Sage
McLaughlin, C. and Ayubayeva, N. (2015) ‘It is the research of self experience’: Feeling the value in action research. International Journal of Educational Action Research. 23,1, 51-67

McLaughlin, C. and Swartz, S (2015) Inviting Backchat: How schools and communities in Ghana, Swaziland and Kenya support children to contextualize knowledge and create agency through sexuality education. International Journal of Educational Development. Special Edition on Extreme Settings edited by Catherine Campbell and Morten Skovdal. 41, March 2015, pp. 208–216

McLaughlin, C. (2015) ‘From Exclusion to Connection.’ In R. Maclean and M. Myhill (Eds.) International Handbook on Life in Schools and Classrooms:  Past, present and future visions. London: Springer.

McLaughlin, C., McLellan, R., Fordham, M., Chandler-Grevett, A. and Daubney, A. (2014) ‘The Role of Teachers in Educational Reform in Kazakhstan: Teacher Enquiry as a Vehicle for Change.’ In D. Bridges (Ed.) Educational reform and internationalisation: the case of school reform in Kazakhstan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Ruby, A. and McLaughlin, C. (2014) ‘Transferability and the Nazarbayev Intellectual Schools: Exploring models of practice transfer.’ In D. Bridges (Ed.) Educational reform and internationalisation: the case of school reform in Kazakhstan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Cobbett, M., McLaughlin, C. and Kiragu, S. (2013) ‘Shifting discourses on sexuality through creating ‘participatory spaces’: reflections on involving children in planning sex education lessons in Kenya, Ghana and Swaziland.’ Sex Education 13(1), August 2013, pp.70-83. Special issue on ‘Methodological interventions in sexuality education research’.

McLaughlin, C. (2012) ‘Bullets or butterflies? Teaching, research and knowledge creation.’ Zeitschrift in Erziehungswissenschaf, 3, 2012. Special edition on Didactics in Europe. Published online August 2012

Gray, J., Galton, M. and McLaughlin, C., Clark, B. and Symonds, J. (2011) The Supportive School: Wellbeing and the Young Adolescent. Cambridge: Scholars Press

McLaughlin, C., Swartz, S., Kiragu, S., Walli, S. and Muhamed, M. (2011) Old Enough To Know: Consulting Children on African Sexualities. Cape Town, SA: HSRC Press

Colleen McLaughlin

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