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Prof Ruth Leitch

MA, MSc, EdD
Professor of Education   

Room 203
69/71 University Street
School of Education
Queen's University Belfast

Tel:  +44(0)28 9097 5949  
Fax:  +44 (0)28 9097 5066
Email:  r.leitch@qub.ac.uk

 

Leadership Roles:
Acting Director, School of Education, Research Cluster on Children’s Rights and Participation in Education
Northern Ireland Representative on the British Educational Research Association (BERA)
Northern Ireland Representative on the UK Strategic Forum for Research in Education (SFRE)
Co-leader (with Professor John Gardner) ESRC Regional Training Centre at Queen’s
School of Education representative on Queen’s Child Forum
Option tutor: MSc Personal and Civic Education

Teaching:
Doctoral (EdD) modules:  Professional as Researcher; Counselling; Psychology
Masters (MSc) modules: Trauma in the Lives of Children; Personal Education

 

Visiting Professorships:

  • Faculty of Education, University of Alberta, Canada
  • Faculty of Education and Health Promotion, University of Bergen, Norway.


Research/Scholarship
Research/Scholarship Interests:
Inclusive and arts-based research methodologies; pupil voice, teacher identity and development.

Research/Scholarship Projects:

  • Standing Conference for Teacher Education North and South (SCoTENS) (with J. Gleeson, University of Limerick; C Sugrue, University of Cambridge) Understanding the potential for research capacity-building in initial teacher education North-South.
  • Standing Conference for Teacher Education North and South (SCoTENS) Developing All-Ireland Research Capacity in Arts-based Educational Research (ABER) (with S Tracey (Queen’s ) Mary Shine Thompson and  Regina Murphy, St Patricks’ College Drumcondra, Dublin.
  • Leitch; R(PI) , Lundy; L Gardner; J, Clough; P,  Galanouli, D  (with Odena, O and Mitchell, S J) (2005-2007) ESRC/TLRP Consulting Pupils on the Assessment of their Learning (CPAL). www.cpal.qub.ac.uk
  • Leitch, R (PI) Enabling Young Voices ( Growing up post-conflict) Research and Development grant (2003-2006)   Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister. www.enablingyoungvoices.org
  • Leitch R ( with Gardner, J)    Feasibility Study for Educational Research Repository (2004-2005) (General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland (GTCNI AARTS) www.gtcni.org.uk


Publications:

  • Leitch R (2010) Masks as self-study. Challenging and sustaining teachers' personal and professional personae in early-mid career life phases, Teachers and Teaching : Theory and Practice, Volume 16, Issue 3 June 2010, pages 329 - 352 
  • Leitch, R (2010) Student Voice in a Global Context: Rights, Benefits and Limitations. In C. Day (ed) International Handbook of School and Teacher Development, London, Routledge, pp 17 (in press)
  • Leitch R (2010) Voices from the Shadows of Violence Post-Conflict:  Using Arts-based Approaches with Pupils and Teachers in Northern Ireland. In Ferguson N (ed) Post-Conflict reconstruction, Continuum Press (in press)
  • Leitch, R (2009) Harnessing the slipstream: building educational research capacity in Northern Ireland: Size matters. Journal of Education for Teaching: international research and pedagogy. Vol 35, No 4, pp.355-371.
  • Leitch, R (with Gardner, J, & Holmes, B) (2009) Assessment and Social Justice, FutureLab Review. available at http://www.futurelab.org.uk/resources/documents/lit_reviews/Assessment_Social_Justice_Review.pdf (2009)
  • Leitch, R (2008) Reinvigorating Conceptions of Teacher Identity: Creating Self-Boxes as Arts-Based Self-Study. Learning Landscapes: Education and the Arts, Autumn 2008, Vol. 1. No. 3, pp 145-163.
  • Leitch, R (2008) Researching Children’s Narratives Creatively through Drawings. In P. Thompson (ed.) Doing Visual Research with Children and Young People, New York & London: Routledge. Pp.37-59
  • Leitch, R (with Gardner, J, & Holmes, B ) (2008) Where there is smoke, there is the (potential for fire). Soft indicators of research and policy impact. Cambridge Journal of Education. Vol 38, No 1, pp73-89.
  • Leitch, R, Mitchell, S, Gardner, J, Odena, O, Lundy, L, Galanouli, D & Clough, P. (2007) Consulting pupils in ‘Assessment for Learning’ classrooms: The twists and turns of working with students as co-researchers. Educational Action Research. Vol. 15, No 3. September, 2007. pp459-488
  • Leitch, R & Mitchell (2007) Caged birds and cloning machines: how student imagery ‘speaks to us about cultures of schooling and student participation Improving Schools. Vol 10, No  1, pp53-71.
  • Leitch, R (2006) Limitations of language: Developing arts-based creative narrative in stories of teachers’ identities. Teaching and Teachers: Theory and Practice. Vol. 12, No 5, pp.549-569.