Ken presents at BERA2018 on identity and norms effects on approach to learning

Ken had the opportunity to present two studies on discipline social identity, deep learning approaches, peer and instructor norms, and the implications for academic grades. The British Educational Research Association conference is a large and diverse educational conference hosted around the UK each year. Ken presented two research studies, both of which have now been … Read more

Kerry O’Brien completes his PhD

Congratulations to Kerry for completing his PhD changes in time for the recent graduation ceremony. Kerry explored several ways of using framing to either make particular identities more salient, or to influence the meaning of those identities. Kerry’s PhD is titled “Framing issues and identities: Aligning the content of group identity with the meaning of issues … Read more

Finding connections in social identity and post-structuralist perspectives

One of the interesting challenges in the recent edited book on Self and Social Identity  in Educational contexts was the final chapter: The social construction of teachers’ identities: finding connections in social identity and post-structuralist perspectives by Emma Rich, Kenneth I. Mavor and Louisa Webb.  what we tried to do in this chapter was find some … Read more

Social identity in education: the modifying role for perceived norms

This is a book chapter by Lillian Smyth, Kenneth I. Mavor, Michael J. Platow and Diana M. Grace in our recently published edited book. In this chapter we explore the recent work by ourselves and also Bliuc and colleagues, examining the relationship between discipline-based social identity and approached to learning (deep or surface). In particular we emphasise the … Read more

Self & Social Identity in Educational Contexts

We are delighted that this edited book is now out and available!  It has been a labour of love for several years but we are very excited to see it come out and to touch upon a number of very important issues in education. See below for the contents and more detail about the book … Read more

Grant awarded by the Scottish Medical Education Research Consortium (SMERC)

We received a grant for just under £10,000 to progress the work on the link between different types of stressors and identity in the medical context into 2017. The project title is: Identity-potent stressors: The interplay of professional (social) identity and specific work-related stressors; and the implications for wellbeing of doctors and medical trainees. This is … Read more

Learning behaviour and outcomes: Social influence and field of study

This is an article by Lillian Smyth, Kenneth I. Mavor,  and Michael J. Platow published in the Social Psychology of Education (2017). The research reported in this paper was part of Lillian’s PhD project on discipline identification, peer norms and approaches to learning. In this paper we confirm the association of both identity and norms with deep learning approaches as … Read more