Dr Joanna Williams
Lecturer in HE & Academic Practice
Profile
I began my career in 1996 as a secondary school English teacher in Birmingham. Upon moving to Canterbury in 1999 I began teaching in the FE sector and I became increasingly interested in national education policies and the impact political changes had upon what went on in classrooms.
I completed an MA in Educational Studies and started to teach on the PGCE (post-compulsory) at Canterbury Christ Church University.
I joined the Academic Practice Team at the University of Kent in 2007. In 2009 I completed my PhD which explored the educational impact of New Labour’s promotion of social inclusion through post-compulsory education.
I am still very interested in the coming together of education and politics and how this plays out in practice. This interest is reflected in both my research and my teaching. I have explored the intersection of education and politics within government policies in varying forms in all my publications.
I have just finished writing a book (publication with Continuum, October 2012) entitled: Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought. In this book I use current debates around university tuition fees to explore the marketisation of higher education and the construction of students as consumers of a university product.
Roles & Responsibilities
- I am a tutor on the ATAP/PGCHE programme and I also teach on the PGDip/MA programme
- I am the convenor for module UN814
- I am the convenor for module UN820
- I am the convenor for module UN824
- I am the Social Sciences Faculty link person for Economics, Kent Business School, SSPSSR, Journalism, Sports Studies and CWAL
Research interests
- Education policy analysis
- The impact of tuition fees/the marketisation of higher education
- The construction of students as consumers of higher education
- Social inclusion and widening participation
Publications
Williams, J. (2012) Consuming Higher Education: Why Learning Can’t Be Bought, London: Continuum. (Publication October 2012)
Williams J. (2012) ‘Where’s the learning in lifelong participation?’ in Journal of Further and Higher Education (36 (1)
Williams, J. (2011) ‘Raising Expectations or Constructing Victims? Problems with promoting social inclusion through lifelong learning’, in International Journal of Lifelong Education, 30 (4)
Williams, J. (2011) ‘A Review of the Higher Education Close Up 5 Conference’ in Teaching in Higher Education, 16 (3)
Williams, J. (2010) ‘Constructing Consumption: Deconstructing Subjectivity?’ in Molesworth, M. Nixon, J. and Scullion, E. (eds.) The Marketisation of UK Higher Education and the Student as Consumer, Routledge: London
Williams, J. (2009) Book Review for ESCalate, http://escalate.ac.uk/4870
19th January, 2009
Williams, J. (2008) ‘Constructing social inclusion through further education - the dangers of instrumentalism’ in Journal of Further and Higher Education, 32(2) pp. 151-160
Williams, J. (2007) ‘A Beginner’s Guide to Lecturing’ in A Lecturer’s Guide to Further Education, Hayes, Marshall and Turner eds. Open University Press
Williams, J. (2005) ‘Skill as metaphor: an analysis of terminology used in Success for All and 21st Century Skills’ in Journal of Further and Higher Education, 29 (2) pp. 181-190
Williams, J. (2004) ‘Afraid to Teach?’ in The RoutledgeFalmer Guide to Key Debates in Education, Hayes, D. Ed. RoutledgeFalmer
Conference Papers
2011, Consumers or Participants? Exploring the pedagogic expectations of fee-paying university students, Paper presented at British Educational Research Association, Institute of Education, September 2011
2010, Constructing Students: consumer or participants? Paper presented at Higher Education Close Up 5, University of Lancaster, July 2010
2009, Where’s the learning in lifelong participation? Paper presented at the Centre for Research in Lifelong Learning Conference, University of Stirling
2008, What can we learn from media representations of students as consumers? Paper presented at the Society for Research into Higher Education New Researchers/Student Conference, Liverpool
2007, The social construction of inclusion through Further Education, Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, Institute of Education, University of London
2006, A critical investigation into the development and impact of social inclusion policies upon PCET, Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association New Researchers/Student Conference, University of Warwick
Grants and Awards
2009
£3,000 from the Society for Educational Studies to hold a one-day conference Shaping Academic Work: The Next Ten Years, 27/11/09
2008
£400 from the Higher Education Academy to hold a seminar Inclusive Higher Education: Who Benefits? 4/3/08
Email: J.G.Williams@kent.ac.uk
Tel: (+44) (0)1227 827137
Location: Canterbury Campus - UELT Room 6