Valerie Farnsworth, BA Linguistics, MA, PhD Educational Policy Studies
Research Associate
Email: valerie.farnsworth@manchester.ac.uk
Tel: 0161 306 1761
Main research interests
Teacher education and teacher development for social justice and the role of educational research in social change, particularly research which utilises methods of critical discourse analysis.
My focus has been on research projects that allow me to explore the relationship between identity, discourse and learning. Previous projects include:
Financial Capability Education Project
Learning to Learn about Communities in Teacher Education: Constructing Identities and Confronting Ideologies, PhD Dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Main teaching interests
I enjoy teaching courses on social justice education, social theory and methods in educational research, with a particular interest in socio-cultural theoretical perspectives connected with discourse and narrative methods. My recent teaching responsibilities include a course module in the MSc Educational Research course called Social Theories of Learning in Research and Practice as well as occasional teaching on modules in the B.A. (Hons) Language, Literacy & Communication course.
Selected recent publications
Farnsworth, V. (under review). Learning to Learn from Communities: Realizing the Potential of Community Based Learning in Teacher Education. Journal of Teacher Education.
Farnsworth, V. (2007). Book Review: Language and Gender in the Fairy Tale Tradition: A Linguistic Analysis of Old and New Story Telling by Alessandra Levorato (2003). Gender and Education, 19 (6), pp. 751752.
Recent conference presentations
The Development of Teacher Identity: Analysing the Influence of the Student Associates Scheme. (Co-presented with Diane Harris) Sociocultural Perspectives on Teacher Education and Development Conference, Oxford, England, April 7-8.
Thinking Outside Your Program: Applying Activity Theory in Teacher Education Research American Educational Research Association, New York, NY, March 2008
Addressing Economic Inequality through Financial Capability Education: Is there Evidence of Empowerment? (Co-presented with Pauline Davis) American Educational Research Association, New York, NY, March 2008
Interrogating Issues of Power within a Socio-cultural Framework: The Role of Ideology. 2nd Socio-Cultural Theory In Educational Research And Practice Conference: Theory, Identity And Learning, University of Manchester, September 2007
Other relevant activities
Convenor of the Socio-cultural Theory Interest Group (ScTIG) at the University of Manchester, June 2006 to present.
Convenor the BERA Socio-cultural and cultural-historical activity theory SIG, 2007-8.