Research expertise in education

There is a great depth and range of research expertise in the School of Education at AUT. Below you will find a short synopsis of the research interests and expertise that exists within our school.

Professor Andrew Gibbons

Andrew Gibbons.

Research expertise

  • Philosophy
  • Technology
  • Education
  • Politics

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Professor Jane Gilbert

Jane Gilbert

Research expertise

  • Educational Futures
  • Equity issues in education
  • Science education
  • Complexity thinking
  • Knowledge/Network age and education
  • Sociology of education
  • Women in science
  • Education in the anthropocene

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Associate Professor Ruth Boyask

Ruth Boyask

Research expertise

  • Changing nature of public education, its policy and practice
  • Children’s reading as a public education issue
  • Systems of schooling
  • School governance
  • Knowledge mobilisation and the utilisation of educational research
  • Theoretical frameworks include public sphere theory, critical theory, policy sociology and pragmatism
  • Methodologies include case study, global ethnography, policy analysis, survey and comparative methods

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Dr Adrian Schoone

Acting Head of School

Adrian Schoone

Research expertise

  • Social pedagogy
  • Alternative education provision
  • Education opportunities for disenfranchised students
  • Methodological expertise: Poetic inquiry (arts-based educational research), phenomenology

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Dr Carol Neill

Carol Neill

Acting Deputy Head of School

  • Aotearoa New Zealand social and political history
  • Communities' engagement with history
  • Economic and social development
  • Global citizenship education

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Dr Carrie Swanson

Senior Lecturer

Carrie Swanson

Research expertise

  • Primary science
  • Dramatic inquiry (or drama-based learning)
  • Mantle of the expert
  • Integrated teaching approaches
  • Action research

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Dr Howard Youngs

Senior Lecturer

Howard Youngs.

Research expertise

  • Post-heroic leadership (distributed, shared, collective)
  • Process and practice perspectives of leadership
  • Critical leadership studies
  • School leadership
  • Higher education leadership
  • Organisational and team development
  • Leadership development
  • Mixed methods research design
  • Case study research
  • New Zealand and ASEAN contexts

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Dr John Milne

Senior Lecturer

John Milne.

Research expertise

  • Metacognition and self-regulation of reading
  • Narrative representations of individual reading styles
  • Reading for pleasure
  • Verbal protocol analysis

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Dr Jyoti Jhagroo

Senior Lecturer

Jyoti Jhagroo

Research expertise

  • Phenomenological research of lived experiences
  • Mathematics education
  • Practice-based research
  • Migrant experiences

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Dr Lisa Maurice-Takerei

Senior Lecturer

Lisa Maurice-takerei

Research expertise

  • Adult education
  • Post-compulsory education and training
  • Tertiary teaching
  • Technical and vocational education and training
  • Teachers’ work
  • Trade-based tutors
  • Practitioner-based research
  • Critical theory
  • Ethnographies

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Dr Megan Lourie

Postgraduate programme Leader, Senior Lecturer

Megan Lourie

Research expertise

  • Sociology of education
  • Policy research and analysis
  • Knowledge economy
  • Bicultural education policy
  • Maori language learning in mainstream school settings

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Dr Neil Boland

Senior Lecturer

Neil Boland.

Research expertise

  • Arts-based practices
  • First-person research
  • Embodied spirituality in child- and adulthood
  • Steiner Waldorf education
  • Creative inquiry (pathway 3)
  • Autoethnography

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Dr Ross Bernay

Senior Lecturer

Ross Bernay.

Research expertise

  • Mindfulness for teachers
  • Stress reduction
  • Partnerships between schools and universities

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Dr Stuart Deerness

Senior Lecturer

Stuart Deerness

Research expertise

  • Sociology of education
  • Social justice and critical approaches in education
  • The cultural, political and discursive structures that shape teachers' work
  • The social construction of school quality
  • Teacher education
  • Qualitative and ethnographic methods

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Dr Tafili Utumapu-McBride

Senior Lecturer

afili Utumapu-McBride

Research expertise

  • Pacific peoples’ education
  • Early childhood education
  • Pasifika pedagogy
  • Studies of Pacific peoples’ societies
  • Higher education
  • Pasifika research methodologies
  • Cross-cultural supervision

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Dr Toni Ingram

Senior Lecturer

Alison Smith.

Research expertise

  • Gender, sexualities and schooling
  • Sexuality education
  • Girlhood
  • Femininities
  • New materialisms
  • Feminist post-structuralism
  • Queer theory
  • Posthumanist research practices

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Dr Yael Cameron

Research Programmes Associate, Senior Lecturer

Yael Cameron

Research expertise

  • Interdisciplinary creative works research
  • Poetic inquiry
  • Critical theory (including feminist and queer theory)
  • Continental philosophy
  • Religious texts and religious education

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Dr Alastair Wells

Lecturer

Alistair Wells

Research expertise

  • Education
  • Technology
  • Pedagogy
  • Philosophy
  • Design thinking
  • Educational environments

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Dr Anienie Veldsman

Lecturer

Anienie Veldsman

Research expertise

  • Sensory processing
  • Motor development
  • Movement learning
  • Participatory action research
  • Teachers’ professional development
  • Inclusive education
  • Play-based learning
  • Social Inclusion in classrooms

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Dr Eunice Gaerlan Price

Lecturer

Eunice Gaerlan Price

Research expertise

  • Girlhood studies
  • Gifted and talented education
  • Gifted and talented girls
  • Social media
  • Feminism
  • Critical media literacy
  • Critical pedagogy
  • Fiction-based research
  • Collective story methodology

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Jo Pascoe

Jo Pascoe

Lecturer

Research expertise

  • Posthuman philosophy
  • Education
  • Theatre, film, literature
  • Creative writing
  • Arts-based research practice
  • Walking methodology

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Martha McFaul

Lecturer

Martha Mcfaul

Research expertise

  • Mathematics education
  • Mathematical reasoning, curriculum and pedagogy
  • Initial teacher education

Pamela Perger

Lecturer

Pamela Perger

Research expertise

  • Mathematics education at early childhood, primary and ITE levels
  • Mathematics and numeracy curriculum and pedagogy
  • Self regulation in learning in primary school students
  • Children’s literature in supporting learning across the curriculum

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Dr Parisa Tadi

Lecturer

Parisa Tadi

Research expertise

  • Early childhood education
  • Parent participation
  • Diversity in education
  • Immigrants and refugee studies
  • Initial teacher education
  • Methodologies: mixed methods research design, survey and comparative study, practice-based research

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Dr Rebecca L. Hopkins

Lecturer

Rebecca L Hopkins

Research expertise

  • Philosophy of education
  • Early childhood education
  • Childhood studies
  • Visual research methods
  • Lens-based practice
  • Wellbeing

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Dr Meg Jacobs

Lecturer

Meg Jacobs

Research expertise

  • Early childhood literacies;
  • Culturally sustaining pedagogies;
  • Family pedagogies;
  • Politics of early literacy;
  • Research methods from qualitative traditions of ethnography,
  • Narrative inquiry,
  • Portraiture,
  • Critical participatory action research

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Dr Lincoln Dam

Lecturer

Lincoln Dam

Research expertise

  • Immigrant/migrant-Indigenous relations
  • Te Tiriti o Waitangi and Asian communities
  • Biculturalism and multiculturalism in Aotearoa New Zealand
  • Race, racism, ethnicity and belonging, especially pertaining to Asian New Zealanders
  • Multicultural education

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More about our research expertise

AUT's academic supervisors are recognised world-class researchers who have the expert knowledge to guide you throughout your studies.

BROWSE RESEARCH EXPERTISE

If you’re interested in applying to a PhD or MPhil, email doctoral.and.mphil.admissions@aut.ac.nz first to assess your eligibility for the programme.

Contact details

Contact us online
Phone 0800 AUT UNI (0800 288 864)

School of Education 
AR101, North Campus 
90 Akoranga Drive 
Northcote, Auckland
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