Halloween is approaching and the season lends itself to the discovery (or rediscovery) of tales and legends, especially as witches are in the limelight of many children’s books. They can be beneficent or evil figures, according to the tradition from which they come. The first figure, that of the evil witch, often depicted as old and […] … learn more→

Universities around the world are increasingly under threat from governments restricting their ability to teach and research freely. Higher education institutions are being targeted because they are the home of critical inquiry and the free exchange of ideas. And governments want to control universities out of fear that allowing them to operate freely might ultimately […] … learn more→

When high schools compete against each other in sports, often the winner is not the school with the best talent, it’s the one with the most financial resources to help develop and support its athletes. Perhaps nowhere is that stark reality more evident than in Des Moines, Iowa. From 2009 through 2018, football teams at […] … learn more→

What are the similarities between JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit , and Snow White and Walt Disney’s Seven Dwarfs ? None, except that the two works for young audiences were born a few months apart – the novel in September 1937, the cartoon at Christmas – and they both feature a group of dwarves. Tolkien discovered those of Disney at the beginning of 1939, in a cinema […] … learn more→

When I started my PhD, I was full of enthusiasm, excited by this new opportunity and period of growth. I read a  blog by Jodie Trembath about having a PhD symbol (she originally called it a PhD totem but changed this on the request of several First Nations scholars in the US). I bought an Asian bamboo […] … learn more→

The “new thing” is often declared the problem for society’s ills. Television and comic books, when they came out half a century or more ago, were blamed for why children were so disobedient, for example. A bit more recently, Dungeons and Dragons was targeted when it achieved some level of popularity in the 70s, with […] … learn more→

The word “ethics” strikes fear into the hearts of most early career researchers. Some of the reasons are beyond our control, but there’s actually a lot we can do to make our own experiences of the ethics approval process less painful. I’m writing this from two perspectives: as an early career researcher (I finished my […] … learn more→

Like many Americans, I worry about the state of the planet and try to make a positive impact through decisions in my day-to-day life. But I also am nagged by the feeling that I often get it wrong, even though I analyze environmental problems for a living. Concerned about plastics in the ocean, I renounced single-use plastic […] … learn more→

Exclusion rates in English state funded schools are once again on the rise, alongside concerns about the impact of exclusion on the well-being of children and also on public safety. The highest level of exclusion rates are experienced by vulnerable students who have Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, and are from disadvantaged and ethnic minority backgrounds. As a […] … learn more→

Well, my current book is nearly done. But I was wondering, the other day, why writing a book never gets any easier. I’ve written quite a lot of books. This one is actually the twenty fourth, although about eight of them are edited collections. Not the same as a monograph or trade book – although […] … learn more→