Dr Juliette Wilson-Thomas

I am committed to education and community practice, and work with students on projects which support both student development and outside partners.

I designed and delivered a project with two local nurseries on critical engagement with the Ofsted cultural capital requirement, and curated an exhibition of children’s graffiti inspired art exhibited at The Powerhouse Library in Moss Side for the ESRC Festival of Social Science

Currently my students and I are working on projects with:

-Z-Arts

-Alexandra Park Learning Community

-Power2

-Lab 0-6 UManresa Spain

All of my work concerns gender, work, value and social exclusion/inequality, this is the thread that ties my expertise and interests together.

As of April 2024 I am the CO-I on a successful £300000 bid for The British Academy Overseas Development fund with Dr Su Lyn Corcoran as P-I. The project, Histories of Practice Za Kujiinua*: Co-designing across boundaries for youth resilience in Kenya, involves us working over 2 years with youth organisations in Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya. We will use transformative storytelling practice to document  youthwork practices which foster youth resilience and resistance in inequitable times. https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/news/funding-announced-for-official-development-assistance-international-interdisciplinary-research-projects-2024/

I recently conducted an evaluation funded by the National Literacy Trust using collage and creative methods to evidence how girls at risk of exclusion have been impacted by an oracy and literacy programme. As a result I am now working with Dr Mel Hall to evaluate another literacy programme in Salford, with a view to qualitative research with families and children on reading practices. 

With Dr Ruby Brooks I am leading a research project exploring the implications of Ofsted’s inclusion of cultural capital in the early years inspection regulations on workers in this sector. We currently have a paper in the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and are analysing our data for research with early years practitioners.

I lead the foundation year within CYES, and engage relational pedagogy and a critical pedagogic approach as well as project-based pedagogy. I am currently conducting a longitudinal study on foundation students’ experiences of this programme, and their time in university as a whole. Using a creative letter-writing and in-depth interviewing methodology I am analysing the experiences of students with complex educational pasts on their higher education degrees.

How I’ll teach you

I am passionate about experiential learning, learning through doing, and active ongoing engagement. I also believe that you learn better if you learn together, and I am interested in continually improving my ability as a facilitator to help create learning communities. I will expect you to speak, to do and to think, and hopefully to have a good time. I am also engaged in underpinning my pedagogy with principles of social justice.

Supervision

I’m currently supervising project on blended learning in Algeria, and on delivering higher education which supports industry transformation in fashion education

I’m interested in projects on work, gender, inequality and project-based learning.

• Wilson-Thomas, J. & Brooks, R. J. (2024) Investigating Ofsted’s Inclusion of Cultural Capital in Early Years Inspections. British Journal of the Sociology of Education. Doi: 10.1080/01425692.2024.2325542

• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2024). “I suppose if you’re not given the tools to get out of the shit, how are you going to get out of the shit?”; A Critical Analysis of the use of Social Capital to address Community Wellbeing and Social Inequality in Time Banking. In Patsy Kraeger, Rhonda Phillips and Rezaul Islam (Eds.) Social (In)equality, Community Well-being and Quality of Life. Edward Elgar Publishing.

• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2023). Agency and Action: Using Project-Based Pedagogy to Give Undergraduates More Control Over their Studies. [Online] Available from: https://asaskat.com/2023/10/07/agency-and-action/

• Corcoran, S.L.,  Davies, L. E., McGahan, J. & Wilson-Thomas, J. (2023). External evaluation of the Represent programme Report for the National Literacy Trust. [Online] https://cdn.literacytrust.org.uk/media/documents/Evaluation_of_Represen…

• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2022). Swiftly Switching Project-Based Learning to the Online Environment. Student Engagement in higher Education Journal https://sehej.raise-network.com/raise/article/view/1058

• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2022) Chapter on my research career for a book entitled ResearcHer to be published by Emerald publishing and distributed to secondary schools across the country in order to promote women in academia.
• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2022, March 8). Money by the Hour: Could a currency based on time change our economic world? [Online]. The Sociological Review Magazine. https://doi.org/10.51428/tsr.wvfp2622
• Wilson‐Thomas, J. (2021). Time’s up: Analyzing the feminist potential of time banks. Gender, Work & Organization. 28(6), pp.2114-2131.
• Wilson-Thomas, J. (2020). ‘Women’s Work’: Gender Discrimination in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). In: Working with Children, Families and Young People; Professional Dilemmas, Perspectives and Solutions.. David Fulton
• Wilson, JV. (2016) ‘Time eases all things’ A critical Study of how Time Banks Attempt to Use Time-Based Currency to Alleviate Social Exclusion [Online] https://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/37721/4/FULL%20THESIS%20JULIETTE%20WILSON.pdf
• Nerantzi, C., Wilson-Thomas, J.V., Munro, N., Lace-Costigan, G. & Currie, N. (2014). Warning! Modelling effective mobile learning is infectious, an example from Higher Education. Ucisa Best Practice in Higher Education. pp.11-17.
• Wilson, JV. (2015). Un-pop quiz- a case study of motivating student engagement through smart games. In: Smart learning: Teaching and learning with smartphones and tablets in post compulsory education.. MELSIG & Sheffield Hallam University,

Forthcoming

• Wilson-Thomas, J. & Corcoran, S. (2025 Accepted for publication:). Literacy and Girls at Risk of Exclusion In Marie-Pierre Moreau (Ed.) The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Gender & Sexuality 
• Wilson-Thomas, J. (Under Review) Social Haunting in First Generation Student Accounts of Higher Education: A Bourdieusian Feminist Analysis. Critical Studies in Education

Book Reviews

In Women’s International Forum: Mothering through precarity: Women’s work and digital media. 

Conference Presentations

• Istanbul Kultur University Journal of Childhood, Education and Society conference (June 2024). [..] The Best that has Been Thought & Said […]; A Critical Feminist Analysis of Cultural Capital in Early Years Policy

• University of Glasgow Teaching Innovation and Learning Enhancement Network April 2024: Project based learning in HE; Creative Critical Assessments & Playful Pedagogy

• Invited Talk: Wonkhe Education Espresso February 2024: Mobilising place as the context for developing students’ skills2023 Invited Talk University of East London Educating for Activism December 2023: Cultural Capital in the OFSTED Early Years Inspection Framework; Critical Feminist Resistance

• Invited Workshop at The Foundation Year Network Conference University of Sheffield July 2023: Workshop on the use of learning journals in HE

• Foundation Year Network Annual Conference July 2023 University of Sheffield Using Project-Based Learning to Develop Creativity and Reflexive Understanding with Foundation Students

• 2023 British Sociological Association Bourdieu Study Group Annual Conference ‘[..] The Best that has Been Thought & Said […]; A Critical Feminist Analysis of Cultural Capital in Early Years Policy
• 2023 British Sociological Association Annual Conference ‘[..] The Best that has Been Thought & Said […]; A Critical Feminist Analysis of Cultural Capital in Early Years Policy
• 2022 University of Suffolk Children and Childhoods Conference Cultural Capital in the Early Years Inspection Framework
• 2022 University of Manchester Alternative Futures and Popular Protest Conference: Time’s Up; Analysing the Feminist Potential of Timebanks
• Invited Talk to the Voluntary Services Network Annual Conference At Sheffield Hallam University 2022: Time’s Up; Analysing the Feminist Potential of Timebanks
• 2021 UTA EdSOTL conference Talk delivered with Mr Mick Chesterman regarding the use of ClassNotebook for ongoing formative feedback
• 2020 Speaker regarding sibling literacy practices during Covid-19 lockdown at Coronavirus and curricular innovation in times of change hosted by Gabrielle Ivinson and Linda Hammersley Fletcher
• 2020 Talk on Timebanks as alternative Practice at Manchester University’s conference, Alternative Futures & Popular Protest Cancelled due to Covid-19
• RAISE 17: Researching, Advancing, & Inspiring Student Engagement Conference September 2017: “Can’t I just do a placement?” Students as Partners in Project-Based Learning.’ Co-presenting with Mick Chesterman and students Antonia Shevlin, Aiysha Malik and Sonia Kumar.
• EECERA European Early Childhood Education Research Association Annual Conference Bologna August 2017: ‘The Potential of Time Banks to Develop an Inclusive Civil Society’
• CELT Annual Teaching and Learning Conference July 2016: Pecha Kucha Presentation: ‘Spark the Change; EdLab as Inclusive Practice in HE’
• International Ethnography Conference Birmingham June 2016: ‘Tensions of the ‘Ethnographic Self’
• British Sociological Association Conference in Glasgow April 2015: ‘I know it’s not exactly life changing but it’s, you know….’ Questioning the Effects of New Economic Organisation through a Case Study of a Time Bank.
• UK Social Policy Conference in Sheffield July 2014: The Best of Times, or the Worst of Times?Time Banks as a Solution to ‘Social Exclusion’.
• Delivering integrated employment policies -Cross-sectorial Policies in Practice conference in Bordeaux May 2014: A Timely Intervention? Exploring Time Banks as a Solution to Social Exclusion.
• BSA Regional Teaching Conference 2014: Exploring Time Banks as a Solution to Social Exclusion
• eAssessment Scotland 2013: http://www.slideshare.net/chrissi/openly-shared-feedback-a-crazy-idea