Geoff Taggart

Email:
g.taggart@reading.ac.uk
Phone:
+44 (0) 118 378 2643
Job title:
Associate Professor

Responsibilities:

Deputy Director of PG Cert Healthcare Education
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:

ED2BHH Head and Heart: Education for Wisdom and Community
EDM174 Values and Practices in Education (with Helen Bilton)
EDM182 Professional Studies
ED3FRL Reflective Leaders of Learning
EDM200 Families and Learning
EDM187 Working with Others in Healthcare

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:

Rose Mina Munjee Teaching social justice through mindfulness
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
Andy Wall Applying the pedagogy of Paulo Freire to a curriculum initiative in Ireland
Blagrove, I. The factors that influence the acceptance or rejection of the Big Bang theory and biological evolution in life-long learning
Hongyan Zhang 'Left behind' preschool children in rural China
Wasayef Albouainain Socio-dramatic play and children's cultural and social development

Teaching

BA Education Studies
BA Ed Primary (Humanities)
PG Certificate in Early Years Practice
PG Certificate in Healthcare Education
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.

Academic qualifications

Senior Fellow of Higher Education Association

Publications

Taggart, G. (2019) Cultivating ethical dispositions in early childhood practice for an ethic of care: a contemplative approach. In: Langton, R. , (eds.) Theorizing Feminist Ethics of Care in Early Childhood Practice: Possibilities and Dangers. Bloomsbury , New York. ISBN: 9781350067486

Taggart, G. (2016) Compassionate pedagogy: the ethics of care in early childhood professionalism. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal , 24 (2). pp. 173-185. ISSN: 1752-1807 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2014.970847

Taggart, G. (2015) Sustaining care: cultivating mindful practice in early years professional development. Early Years , 35 (4). pp. 381-393. ISSN: 0957-5146 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2015.1105200

Taggart, G. (2011) Don't we care?: the ethics and emotional labour of early years professionalism. Early Years , 31 (1). pp. 85-95. ISSN: 0957-5146 | doi: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09575146.2010.536948

Taggart, G. (2010) Religious and spiritual identity and citizenship education in the UK . In: Soininen, M. and Merisuo-Storm, T. , (eds.) Looking at Diversity in Different Ways. University of Turku , Turku, Finland. pp. 95-119.