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Professor PATRICIA THOMSON's Outputs (28)

Towards a framework for care-full teacher learning: stories from the British art show professional development programme (2024)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., & Coles, R. (2024). Towards a framework for care-full teacher learning: stories from the British art show professional development programme. Professional Development in Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/19415257.2024.2433069

The education system in England can arguably be characterised as careless. Art teachers for example are rarely offered opportunities to acquire subject-specific knowledges. This paper reports on a programme which supported art teachers to engage with... Read More about Towards a framework for care-full teacher learning: stories from the British art show professional development programme.

Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I’m miserable now (2024)
Journal Article
Thomson, P. (2024). Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I’m miserable now. Studies in Continuing Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/0158037X.2024.2417095

Social media afford the proliferation of doctoral memes across numerous, generally anonymous, accounts spread over multiple platforms-the timeline where the PhD candidate starts off gleaming with health and beaming in delight and ends up an overweigh... Read More about Doctoral memes as public pedagogy? Or, heaven knows I’m miserable now.

Why bother with arts education in schools? (2024)
Journal Article
Thomson, P. (2025). Why bother with arts education in schools?. Australian Educational Researcher, 52, 781–801. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-024-00741-0

Enrolments in school arts subjects are falling in both England and Australia. There are various arguments made in an attempt to reverse the situation. The arts are said to be vital for the economy, linked to success in core school subjects, are educa... Read More about Why bother with arts education in schools?.

The best of times, the worst of times: Continuities in school leaders' work in uncertain times (2024)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., & Greany, T. (in press). The best of times, the worst of times: Continuities in school leaders' work in uncertain times. Educational Management Administration and Leadership, https://doi.org/10.1177/17411432231218544

The COVID 19 pandemic created new challenges for school leaders. They worked very long hours in difficult circumstances. Improvising and responding quickly to poorly timed central guidelines had an adverse effect on their health and wellbeing. Our mi... Read More about The best of times, the worst of times: Continuities in school leaders' work in uncertain times.

‘The way I know is by looking back’: English primary school children’s views of making progress in arts subjects (2023)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., Maloy, L., & Hall, C. (2024). ‘The way I know is by looking back’: English primary school children’s views of making progress in arts subjects. Education 3-13, 52(2), 251-263. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2023.2253075

Educators are concerned that children make progress in their learning. While there are both policy and professional debates about how progress should be monitored and assessed, the views of children are rarely considered. Grounded in the ‘voiced’ res... Read More about ‘The way I know is by looking back’: English primary school children’s views of making progress in arts subjects.

Research Subjects, Participants or Co‐researchers? Extending the Involvement of Students in Art and Design Research (2023)
Journal Article
Maloy, L., & Thomson, P. (2023). Research Subjects, Participants or Co‐researchers? Extending the Involvement of Students in Art and Design Research. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 42(3), 353-366. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12470

Art education has a range of purposes. Art is said to support students to explore, interpret, ask critical questions, communicate and realise ideas, experiment, take risks, collaborate, tell stories and/or engage in social and political actions. In t... Read More about Research Subjects, Participants or Co‐researchers? Extending the Involvement of Students in Art and Design Research.

English schooling and little e and big E exclusion: what’s equity got to do with it? (2022)
Journal Article
Mills, M., & Thomson, P. (2022). English schooling and little e and big E exclusion: what’s equity got to do with it?. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 27(3), 185-198. https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2022.2092273

It seems uncontentious that policy development should be informed by evidence, and that researchers should be engaged to assess available evidence. In this paper, we tell the story of a Rapid Evidence Assessment (REA) about school exclusion, a task i... Read More about English schooling and little e and big E exclusion: what’s equity got to do with it?.

Punk ideals, school leaders and fashioning an “authentic” self (2022)
Journal Article
Heffernan, A., & Thomson, P. (2023). Punk ideals, school leaders and fashioning an “authentic” self. Research in Education, 115(1), 80-99. https://doi.org/10.1177/00345237221131107

The field of education is in dire need of different ways of thinking about attracting, supporting, and retaining school leaders. We see the idea of punk as a space that may offer some leeway for thinking differently about professionalism for school l... Read More about Punk ideals, school leaders and fashioning an “authentic” self.

What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education? (2022)
Journal Article
Keddie, A., MacDonald, K., Blackmore, J., Boyask, R., Fitzgerald, S., Gavin, M., Heffernan, A., Hursh, D., McGrath-Champ, S., Møller, J., O’Neill, J., Parding, K., Salokangas, M., Skerritt, C., Stacey, M., Thomson, P., Wilkins, A., Wilson, R., Wylie, C., & Yoon, E.-S. (2023). What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education?. Australian Educational Researcher, 50(5), 1571-1597. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-022-00573-w

The series of responses in this article were gathered as part of an online mini conference held in September 2021 that sought to explore different ideas and articulations of school autonomy reform across the world (Australia, Canada, England, Ireland... Read More about What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education?.

Cultural capitals matter, differentially: a Bourdieusian reading of perspectives from senior secondary students in England (2022)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., & Hall, C. (2022). Cultural capitals matter, differentially: a Bourdieusian reading of perspectives from senior secondary students in England. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 43(6), 860-877. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2022.2083582

Ofsted, the inspection authority in England, has told schools to ensure that all students have access to cultural capital, taken as a canon of music, literature and art. In this paper, we trouble this guidance by analysing conversations with 1447 sen... Read More about Cultural capitals matter, differentially: a Bourdieusian reading of perspectives from senior secondary students in England.

Vox Poetica: bringing an arts-based research method to school leaders’ lockdown experiences (2022)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., Greany, T., Cousins, S., & Martindale, N. (2023). Vox Poetica: bringing an arts-based research method to school leaders’ lockdown experiences. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 55(2), 215-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2022.2071849

The work of school leaders during lockdown has been emotionally charged and emotionally draining, affecting immediate well-being and longer term career plans. In order to communicate the emotions that we were told about and which were obvious during... Read More about Vox Poetica: bringing an arts-based research method to school leaders’ lockdown experiences.

The trust deficit in England: emerging research evidence about school leaders and the pandemic (2021)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., Greany, T., & Martindale, N. (2021). The trust deficit in England: emerging research evidence about school leaders and the pandemic. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 53(3-4), 296-300. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2021.1975366

Limited research has assessed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on school leaders specifically. Working together with England's two leader associations, we designed and conducted a national survey of almost 1500 leaders in summer 2021 to assess th... Read More about The trust deficit in England: emerging research evidence about school leaders and the pandemic.

‘You just feel more relaxed’: An Investigation of Art Room Atmosphere (2021)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., & Hall, C. (2021). ‘You just feel more relaxed’: An Investigation of Art Room Atmosphere. International Journal of Art and Design Education, 40(3), 599-614. https://doi.org/10.1111/jade.12370

Art educators are increasingly interested in the affective dimensions of pedagogy. This paper contributes by exploring students' reports of feeling more relaxed and less stressed in the art room, data drawn from a three year study of thirty arts rich... Read More about ‘You just feel more relaxed’: An Investigation of Art Room Atmosphere.

Changing play – writing, researching and learning in an early years arts project (2019)
Journal Article
Franks, A., & Thomson, P. (2019). Changing play – writing, researching and learning in an early years arts project. Ethnography and Education, https://doi.org/10.1080/17457823.2019.1579659

'Changing Play' is an ongoing project initiated by education curators from the Serpentine, a prestigious London art gallery, working with the Portman children's centre nursery. Viewed by curators as a collaboration between artist, children's centre s... Read More about Changing play – writing, researching and learning in an early years arts project.

The pedagogical logics of arts-rich schools: a Bourdieusian analysis (2019)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., Hall, C., Earl, L., & Geppert, C. (2019). The pedagogical logics of arts-rich schools: a Bourdieusian analysis. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 40(2), 239-253. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2018.1554474

© 2018, © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. The arts are under threat in English schools. But some schools and teachers work against the trend. To understand how they continue to offer rich arts experiences to students, we... Read More about The pedagogical logics of arts-rich schools: a Bourdieusian analysis.

Thinking about the school most of the time: studio as generative metaphor for critical reflection (2018)
Journal Article
Thomson, P. (2019). Thinking about the school most of the time: studio as generative metaphor for critical reflection. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 51(2), 87-102. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2018.1536039

Busy leaders need time to reflect and renew. They need to consider the particularities of their school and the ways in which they can work with others in the school community to address pressing issues, as well as to make future plans. The metaphor o... Read More about Thinking about the school most of the time: studio as generative metaphor for critical reflection.

Subject choice as everyday accommodation/resistance: why students in England (still) choose the arts (2018)
Journal Article
Thomson, P., Hall, C., Earl, L., & Geppert, C. (2020). Subject choice as everyday accommodation/resistance: why students in England (still) choose the arts. Critical Studies in Education, 61(5), 545-560. https://doi.org/10.1080/17508487.2018.1525754

High school students are expected to make choices about which subjects they study. These choices are not completely open but steered by what is on offer, previous achievement and conversations with teachers, family and friends; choices are patterned... Read More about Subject choice as everyday accommodation/resistance: why students in England (still) choose the arts.

A little more madness in our methods?: a snapshot of how the educational leadership, management and administration field conducts research (2017)
Journal Article
Thomson, P. (in press). A little more madness in our methods?: a snapshot of how the educational leadership, management and administration field conducts research. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 49(3), https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2017.1315381

The field of educational leadership, management and administration (ELMA) uses methods drawn primarily from cognate educational disciplines. But does this matter? This paper explores the methods used in recently published papers through a snapshot of... Read More about A little more madness in our methods?: a snapshot of how the educational leadership, management and administration field conducts research.

Creativity in teaching: what can teachers learn from artists? (2016)
Journal Article
Hall, C., & Thomson, P. (in press). Creativity in teaching: what can teachers learn from artists?. Research Papers in Education, 32(1), https://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2016.1144216

Since the turn of the century, there have been frequent expressions of concern about a perceived lack of creativity in UK schools, in both curriculum content and in teaching. Recently, as the emphasis on mathematics, science and technology has streng... Read More about Creativity in teaching: what can teachers learn from artists?.