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Geoff Taggart

Dr Geoff Taggart
  • PhD, EdD and MA supervision
  • Academic tutor

Areas of interest

All of my teaching and research focusses on ways in which education can help us to flourish as human beings. A key theme centres on adult behaviour in learning organisations which espouse an ethic of care, particularly behaviours associated with professional resilience and reflection. Early years is a rich context for this work. I investigated spiritual development for my PhD and have been ordained as an interfaith minister: I therefore retain a strong interest in the philosophical foundations of education and am exploring the new field of contemplative pedagogy. I convene the following modules:

  • EDM174 Values and Practices in Education (with Helen Bilton)
  • EDM182 Professional Studies
  • ED2BHW Head and Heart: Education for Wisdom and Community
  • ED3FRL Reflective Leaders of Learning
  • EDM200 Families and Learning

Postgraduate supervision

Masters and Phd/EdD Level Supervision offered in these areas:

  • Supervision in early years settings.
  • Attachment styles amongst early years practitioners.
  • Spiritual development in education.
  • Professionalism and an ethic of care.
  • Practitioner self-care and burnout.
  • Interfaith religious education.
  • Contemplative pedagogy
  • Ethics and teacher professionalism
  • Mindfulness and education

Current and Recent PhD and EdD Students, with Topics/Titles of their research:

  • Andy Wall - Applying the pedagogy of Paulo Freire to a curriculum initiative in Ireland
  • Hongyan Zhang - 'Left behind' preschool children in rural China
  • Wasayef Albouainain - Socio-dramatic play and children's cultural and social development
  • Broadfoot, H. Compassion and early childhood practice
  • Pawson, G. Supervision in early years settings in the UK
  • Morris, L. Early years practitioners' perceptions of their emotional labour
  • Blagrove, I. The factors that influence the acceptance or rejection of the Big Bang theory and biological evolution in life-long learning

Teaching

  • FD/BA Children's Development and Learning
  • BA Education Studies
  • BA Ed Primary (Humanities)
  • PG Certificate in Early Years Practice
  • PGCE Primary
  • MA Education

Research projects

  • Re-gendering Early Years: from Maternal Care to Political Compassion : interviews with early years practitioners who are also mothers. Argues for the need to re-interpret the maternal tradition in early childhood education.
  • Good with Children: ethical formation in early childhood teacher programmes. Argues for an affective approach to ethical formation and development in teacher development

Values in Education.

Additional:

  • Taggart, G. (2019) Early childhood education: from maternal care to social compassion In Barton, G. and Garvis, S. (eds) Compassion and Empathy in Educational Contexts London: Palgrave

 

Academic qualifications

  • Senior Fellow of Higher Education Association

Selected publications

Conference Presentations:

  • Compassionate pedagogy in the early years International Symposium on Compassionate Organizations, Kentucky USA May 2013
  • Taggart, G. (2011, October). Caring plc: professional subjectivity and the commodification of childcare. Paper presented at the 19th Reconceptualising Early Childhood Education Conference, University of East London
  • 'Perceptions of Early Childhood Education and Care as a Profession and Career' European Early Childhood Education Research Association conference, Birmingham, 2010
  • 'Towards a more holistic form of teacher education' ESCALATE 2007, St Martins College, Lancaster

Enterprise Activity, External Roles and Consultancy:

 

  • 2012: Overview of Religious Education in England for Sinobridge.

 

Publications