Grants and Prizes
Annual Book Prizes 2011
For the attention of publishers.
The Society for Educational Studies awards annual Book Prizes for the best books on Education published in the preceding year. The first prize is for £2000, the second for £1000 and we have a highly recommended category which carries an award to the author(s) of £750. First prize is awarded to the author(s) of the book judged to have made the most important contribution to the study of Education in the year under consideration.
Publishers are invited to submit nominations for the Book Prize from work that shows printed in the book, a publication date of 2010. Please note that nominations made to the members of the Book Prize Sub Committee by people other than publishers will not be accepted. Books will be considered which focus directly on education research and scholarship in the UK with at least one of the authors based at a UK institution; and/or, will be of obvious interest and value to members of UK education academic communities. Textbooks or books that are principally of professional interest are not eligible. Edited books are eligible although discussions within the Book Prize sub-committee have tended to suggest that it may be difficult for this sort of book to meet the criteria associated with the awards.
In order to nominate a book copies should be sent by publishers to the members of the Book Prize Committee. We would need to receive copies of your nominated books by Friday 11 March 2011. Publishers are free to nominate as many books as they wish.
Publishers who have nominated books in recent years include Continuum, Dunedin, Open University, Palgrave Macmillan, Routledge, Sage, Trentham, Wiley Blackwell.
The criteria that will be used in evaluating ‘best book’ awards are as follows:
- Quality of research and/or scholarship: The quality of the research upon which a book is based and/or the quality of the scholarship demonstrated in the work should be of fundamental importance. For these reasons textbooks and books of practical advice for professionals on matters such as classroom control etc are not eligible.
- Originality of analysis and argument: Works selected for the awards should demonstrate originality of approach e.g. in the topic selected, the data generated, the forms of analysis and the nature of the argument.
- Theory/practice relation: Work which is able to connect theoretical and academic considerations in Educational Studies with implications for educational policy and practice will be regarded as of particular importance.
- Quality and accessibility of writing: Work which is able to convey complex data, analysis and argument in accessible forms will be at an advantage.
The prizes will be presented at the Annual Conference of the Society for Educational Studies which will be held in London in November 2011.
Members of the Book Prizes Committee
- Dr. Ghazala Bhatti, University of Southampton, School of Education, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ.
- Professor Ian Davies, Department of Education, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10 5DD.
- Professor Jean Murray, School of Education, University of East London, 15 Romford Road, Stratford, London, E15 4PL.
- Dr. Sue Rogers Institute of Education, University of London, School of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, 20 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AL.
- Dr. Carlo Raffo School of Education, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M13 9PL.
Society for Educational Studies National Award 2011
The Society for Educational Studies is delighted to announce that the SES National Award 2011 of £200,000 has been made to Professor Gary McCulloch, Professor Gemma Moss and Dr. James Thomas of the Institute of Education, University of London for their project 'The Social Organisation Of Educational Studies: Past, Present and Future'. The project will run for the next two years. The project will map the changing discourses and knowledge structures of educational studies across the United Kingdom in relation to the State, research and education to establish the social organisation of the field as a whole, not solely in terms of ideas but in relation to social and political changes since the establishment of the Standing Conference on Studies in Education (SCSE) in 1951. The SCSE became the Society for Educational Studies in 2000.
Eligibility
Principal Investigators applying for the Society for Educational Studies National Award of up to £200,000 must be affiliated with a British university, college or school. Closing date 13 December 2010.
Small grants
The Society for Educational Studies offers small grants of up to £10,000. Applicants must be working in the field of Education and will be asked to become members of the SES if they are not already members.
The Academic Tribe of Teacher Educators: Student and Staff Constructions of the Identities of Pre-Service Teacher Educators
The project proposed conducting a literature review in the areas of teacher educators’ identities and knowledge bases (with particular reference to research on academic identities, their relationships to the discipline and the institutional settings, and differing patterns of engagement in the teaching / research / scholarship / service nexus).
Book Prizes 2010
Christine Skelton and Becky Francis – Feminism and 'The schooling scandal'. Routledge. (1st prize)
The authors write that "Our aim in writing this book is to provide an overview for those new to gender and education of the developments in feminist thinking on, and approaches to, gender and schooling in the context of the UK educational system".
The book does very much more than that. It offers fascinating insights into gender and education with penetrating analyses of social class, ethnicity and sexuality in schools, theories and methodologies for understanding gender as well as exploring the past trends and likely future developments in policy.
Richard Pring, Geoff Hayward, Ann Hodgson, Jill Johnson, Ewart Keep, Alis Oancea, Gareth Rees, Ken Spours and Stephanie Wilde – Education for all: the future of education and training for 14-19 year olds. Routledge. (2nd prize)
The authors consider 2 key questions: what counts as an education 19 year old today?; and, are the models of education we have inherited from the past sufficient to meet the needs of all young people as well as the social and economic needs of the wider community? Evidence was collected over a five year period in the Nuffield Review. Within the context of a fair recognition of what has recently been achieved the authors offer a critical, comprehensive and readable account of what needs to be done for students in the 14-19 age group.
Alan Felstead, Alison Fuller, Nick Jewson and Lorna Unwin – Improving Working as Learning. Routledge. (Highly recommended).
This book is based on detailed diverse workplace case studies. It is an original piece of work in which the Working as Learning Framework is explored and discussed. The authors in this very well written book make good suggestions for improving the conditions for nurturing and sustaining learning at work.
Pat Thomson – School Leadership: heads on the block. Routledge. (Highly recommended).
Pat Thomson explores detailed cases and narratives in order to provide a 'real' picture of the lives of head teachers from research and biographical experiences. A central feature of this book is an exploration of the risk society in relation to the changing nature of leadership and management. It is based in part on the author's own experience of headship and, as Stephen Ball note on the back cover, “blows away the complacent niceties of leadership theories in an account of the risks, stresses and dissatisfactions of real leadership in real schools”.