Dr Aliandra Barlete

Teaching Fellow

Biography

Qualifications

PhD in Sociology of Education, Faculty of Education, Wolfson College, University of Cambridge (UK)

MPhil in Higher Education, University of Oslo (Norway), University of Tampere (Finland) and University of Aveiro (Portugal) - Erasmus Mundus Joint Degree 

BA in Social Communication, Federal University of Santa Maria (Brazil) 

Postgraduate Certificate Academic Practice (Higher Education), University of Edinburgh (2024-2027)

Responsibilities & affiliations

- ECS Representative, Quality Assurance and Enhancement Subgroup (2024-2027) 

- MHSES Internationalisation Working Group (2024)

- Affiliate, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (2023-2024)

 

Memberships:

- British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE), Member

- British Educational Research Association (BERA), Member

- Comparative and International Education Studies (CIES), Member

- Early Career Higher Education Researchers Network (ECHER), Member

 

Postgraduate teaching

I teach on the MSc in Comparative Education and International Development as well as on the MSc Education.

- Education Policy and the Politics of Education

- The Philosophy of Education

- Comparative Education and International Development 

- Comparative Analysis in Education

- Conceptualising Research: Foundations, Assumptions and Praxis

- Dissertation: Capstone Approach (MSc CEID)

Open to PhD supervision enquiries?

Yes

Areas of interest for supervision

I welcome inquiries for supervision in the areas of: 

- Comparative education policy

- Higher education spaces and regions

- Sociology of higher education, including issues of access, gender and race

- Discourses and practices of quality assurance in higher education

- Critical approaches to comparative research (historical, critical realist, de/post-colonial, feminist)

Research summary

I have been increasingly interested in the analysis and teaching of social theory in education, in its many forms, i.e. theoretical foundations and decolonial perspectives, as well as the understanding of educational change, through policy. 

This led me to develop two teaching projects:

Since 2021 I run a project on ‘Southern Social theory and education’, as a way to inspire students to question the way they approach their thesis topics, i.e. by considering plural, local, perspectives into their dissertation topics.

In 2022 I established a teaching project to explore the practice of social theory, namely the Social Theory Walks across Edinburgh. This has now received funding from the Principal's Teaching Award (PTAS). 

Current research interests

- The practice and the teaching of social theory - Southern Social Theory approaches to analyse educational phenomena - Critical theoretical and methodological approaches to education policy and policy analysis - Comparative analysis of educational change in the developing world - Quality assurance in higher education - Higher education spaces and regions

Knowledge exchange

I act as a reviewer for the journals: 

- Education Policy Analysis Archives

- Educação e realidade

- Globalisation, Societies and Education

- Journal of Studies in International Education

- Journal of International Cooperation in Education

- Migration and Society

Affiliated research centres

Project activity

- Southern Social theory and education: This project has the objective to critically discover, recognise and include ‘Southern’ theoretical perspectives in educational analysis. It aims to inspire students to develop critical analyses of education practice and policy using theoretical knowledge originating from the Global South, or postcolonial theories that critique hegemonic social science knowledge (from January 2022).

- Social Theory Walks: The City of Edinburgh as a teaching space for social theory applied to Education: The project aims to offer guided walks around Edinburgh with a specific concept in mind in order reflect upon how social theory becomes practice in the city’s past and present (from May 2022).

- The discourse and practices of quality in higher education:  This project is interested in the theoretical and empirical comparative analysis of the understanding of day-to-day quality enhancement practices in higher education. It departs from the concept of quality work, defined as the multiple practices that address the quality for educational provision (Elken & Stensaker, 2019; Elken et al, 2020) to explore the daily efforts for quality enhancement of higher education systems across the world (from September 2022).

Current project grants

‘Social Theory Walks: The City of Edinburgh as a teaching space for social theory applied to Education’ (PTAS Award, 2023-2025).

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