Simon Warren
Biographic Data
| ID | 3701522 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Simon Warren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Simon |
| FAMILY NAME | Warren |
| SIGNATURE | WARREN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0568-0709 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 17 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 68 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 17 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
After the ‘refugee crisis’ and the Yerevan Communiqué
The Yerevan Communiqué represents a possible high-point in European responses to the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ and the role of higher education in building an inclusive Europe. If that is so, then the post-2015 period can be seen as a retreat from the moral stance taken in the Communiqué. This paper takes a different perspective and argues that the post-2015 period reveals tensions at the heart of the European project and the role of higher education…
The multiple temporalities of policy-oriented sociology of education
This paper argues that Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities is a useful basis for a historical imagination to work alongside the sociological imaginations in policy-oriented sociology of education work. More recently within the social and humanistic sciences there has been a turn towards temporal considerations. Often this is animated by critiques of modernist or linear conceptions of progress, or a sense that earlier progressivi…
Central and Eastern Europe in Academic Internationalization
The article reflects on knowledge production in the context of research internationalization, seen as an aspect of a broader trend in the changing higher education and other academic institutions. It focuses on Central and Eastern Europe as a post-communist and (semi)peripheral region, which has been the subject of historical and theoretical analysis often accompanied by epistemological reflection among researchers. As an introduction to the them…
How does research performativity and selectivity impact on the non-core regions of Europe? The case for a new research agenda
‘Reconceptualising internationalisation through students’ eyes’
This paper presents findings from an Irish qualitative study of postgraduate, female, international students. It focuses on their narrations of internationalisation, in respect of events leading them to become international students, and their reflections on their academic, interpersonal and societal experiences in Ireland. International students are generally understudied and marginalised as metaphorical ‘others’ within global education policies…
Struggling for visibility in higher education
What happens when neoliberalism as a structural and structuring force is taken up within institutions of higher education, and works upon academics in higher education individually? Employing a critical authoethnographic approach, this paper explores the way technologies of research performance management, specifically, work to produce academics (and academic managers) as particular kinds of neoliberal subject. The struggle to make oneself visibl…
The making of Irish-speaking Ireland
This paper is about linguistic justice issues in the post-colonial context of an Irish-speaking region in the south-west of Ireland, drawing on a study of political mobilization around the Irish-medium education policy of the region’s secondary school. I explore how the incipient Irish state was involved in a nationalizing project of developing strategies to constitute the Irish polity into a particular nation bound by an language of ‘archaic bel…
Trust schools and the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest
This paper sets out the theoretical and methodological approach of a study of the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest in relation to the Trust schools initiative in England. Drawing on the discourse theoretical approach of Laclau and Mouffe the paper argues that the politics of consensus associated with New Labour reconfigures the field of politics, closing down legitimate democratic space. Building on this approach and that o…
Migration, race and education
The promise of evidence‐based policy is that social scientific research can lead to rational planning that will lead to improved outcomes and life chances for people across the whole spectrum of social provision. This article argues that evidence is politically mobilised to legitimise the reproduction of racial and social advantage and construct racialised groups as targets for policy intervention. It is suggested that migration and education pol…
Challenging lifelong learning policy discourse
Can adult educational research on learning and identity counter the individualising of neoliberal government policy that seeks to constrain educational ‘choices’ to those that contribute to government economic agendas? This article notes the recent move within post-compulsory education research towards an engagement with Bourdieu because of perceived limitations in the research and analysis of learner identities. In particular, Bourdieu is drawn …
Resilience and refusal
In this paper I attempt to do three things. Firstly, I explore the concept of resistance in the sociology of youth and education. I raise questions about the power of this concept to provide a descriptive language for understanding the way young people generally, and in this paper, young African‐Caribbean men in London schools, deal with the contexts of institutional racism. I then go on to suggest the concepts of ‘resilience’ and ‘refusal’ as pr…
Family Resources and Community Social Capital as Routes to Valued Employment in the UK
This paper analyses existing research on social capital, school choice and educational attainment to consider the questions that need to be answered if the role of social capital in reducing or extending social inequality is to be addressed. We identify a need to distinguish between: social surveillance and genuinely educative forms of social capital; between parent–pupil interactions and family: school links that generate positive external spin-…
Is That an Action Man in There? Masculinity as an Imaginative Act of Self-creation
The concept of masculinity has been critiqued either as an ideological effect of patriarchy or as a play of discourse. This occurs at a time when there is renewed interest in biologically reductive theories of gender, and in the context (in the UK) of public disquiet about boys' academic performance. This paper argues that while masculinity cannot be regarded as a foundational subject, the reality of the category 'masculinity' in the daily lives …
This won't take long
In this paper, the focus is on one particular research project, conducted in the UK, which studied the role of parent groups and organizations in relation to the mainstream education system. The authors seek to analyze and evaluate access to the different "structures of feeling" inhabited by the various respondents involved in the project. Using the project as a lens, a critical case, the relationships between respondents and researchers are prob…
Becoming a ‘Better’ Parent? Motherhood, education and transition
The focus of this paper is a parent education group, offering parents an accredited practical skills course, which aims to familiarise them with educational activities suitable for young children. Drawing on theories from Gramsci and set within a context informed by social policy analysis, this paper examines both the content of the course and the experiences of the female students. It looks in detail at the discourse of ‘sensitive mothering’ and…
Who do these boys think they are? An investigation into the construction of masculinities in a primary classroom
Concern about the behaviour of boys and young men is generating a great deal of debate in Britain. Within education, a ‘common‐sense’ view of boys' behaviours tends to rest upon biologically or socially essentialist understandings. Using theoretical approaches based on social constructionist and post‐structuralist understandings of identity formation, this paper analyses empirical data collected during qualitative research in a British primary sc…
A ‘different kind’ of professional? Case studies of the work of parent‐centred organizations
This paper considers the positions of three professionals working with parents in what we call parent‐centred organizations. Our aim is to explore the extent of the ‘space’ they have available to them to construct their own understandings of their role, and to implement their priorities and agendas. We consider how these individual versions to professionalism articulate with the context in which these three people work, and the implications for t…
This won't take long
In this paper, the focus is on one particular research project, conducted in the UK, which studied the role of parent groups and organizations in relation to the mainstream education system. The authors seek to analyze and evaluate access to the different "structures of feeling" inhabited by the various respondents involved in the project. Using the project as a lens, a critical case, the relationships between respondents and researchers are prob…
Who do these boys think they are? An investigation into the construction of masculinities in a primary classroom
Concern about the behaviour of boys and young men is generating a great deal of debate in Britain. Within education, a ‘common‐sense’ view of boys' behaviours tends to rest upon biologically or socially essentialist understandings. Using theoretical approaches based on social constructionist and post‐structuralist understandings of identity formation, this paper analyses empirical data collected during qualitative research in a British primary sc…
Struggling for visibility in higher education
What happens when neoliberalism as a structural and structuring force is taken up within institutions of higher education, and works upon academics in higher education individually? Employing a critical authoethnographic approach, this paper explores the way technologies of research performance management, specifically, work to produce academics (and academic managers) as particular kinds of neoliberal subject. The struggle to make oneself visibl…
Becoming a ‘Better’ Parent? Motherhood, education and transition
The focus of this paper is a parent education group, offering parents an accredited practical skills course, which aims to familiarise them with educational activities suitable for young children. Drawing on theories from Gramsci and set within a context informed by social policy analysis, this paper examines both the content of the course and the experiences of the female students. It looks in detail at the discourse of ‘sensitive mothering’ and…
Resilience and refusal
In this paper I attempt to do three things. Firstly, I explore the concept of resistance in the sociology of youth and education. I raise questions about the power of this concept to provide a descriptive language for understanding the way young people generally, and in this paper, young African‐Caribbean men in London schools, deal with the contexts of institutional racism. I then go on to suggest the concepts of ‘resilience’ and ‘refusal’ as pr…
Migration, race and education
The promise of evidence‐based policy is that social scientific research can lead to rational planning that will lead to improved outcomes and life chances for people across the whole spectrum of social provision. This article argues that evidence is politically mobilised to legitimise the reproduction of racial and social advantage and construct racialised groups as targets for policy intervention. It is suggested that migration and education pol…
Family Resources and Community Social Capital as Routes to Valued Employment in the UK
This paper analyses existing research on social capital, school choice and educational attainment to consider the questions that need to be answered if the role of social capital in reducing or extending social inequality is to be addressed. We identify a need to distinguish between: social surveillance and genuinely educative forms of social capital; between parent–pupil interactions and family: school links that generate positive external spin-…
Is That an Action Man in There? Masculinity as an Imaginative Act of Self-creation
The concept of masculinity has been critiqued either as an ideological effect of patriarchy or as a play of discourse. This occurs at a time when there is renewed interest in biologically reductive theories of gender, and in the context (in the UK) of public disquiet about boys' academic performance. This paper argues that while masculinity cannot be regarded as a foundational subject, the reality of the category 'masculinity' in the daily lives …
The making of Irish-speaking Ireland
This paper is about linguistic justice issues in the post-colonial context of an Irish-speaking region in the south-west of Ireland, drawing on a study of political mobilization around the Irish-medium education policy of the region’s secondary school. I explore how the incipient Irish state was involved in a nationalizing project of developing strategies to constitute the Irish polity into a particular nation bound by an language of ‘archaic bel…
A ‘different kind’ of professional? Case studies of the work of parent‐centred organizations
This paper considers the positions of three professionals working with parents in what we call parent‐centred organizations. Our aim is to explore the extent of the ‘space’ they have available to them to construct their own understandings of their role, and to implement their priorities and agendas. We consider how these individual versions to professionalism articulate with the context in which these three people work, and the implications for t…
Trust schools and the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest
This paper sets out the theoretical and methodological approach of a study of the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest in relation to the Trust schools initiative in England. Drawing on the discourse theoretical approach of Laclau and Mouffe the paper argues that the politics of consensus associated with New Labour reconfigures the field of politics, closing down legitimate democratic space. Building on this approach and that o…
Challenging lifelong learning policy discourse
Can adult educational research on learning and identity counter the individualising of neoliberal government policy that seeks to constrain educational ‘choices’ to those that contribute to government economic agendas? This article notes the recent move within post-compulsory education research towards an engagement with Bourdieu because of perceived limitations in the research and analysis of learner identities. In particular, Bourdieu is drawn …
Who do these boys think they are? An investigation into the construction of masculinities in a primary classroom
Concern about the behaviour of boys and young men is generating a great deal of debate in Britain. Within education, a ‘common‐sense’ view of boys' behaviours tends to rest upon biologically or socially essentialist understandings. Using theoretical approaches based on social constructionist and post‐structuralist understandings of identity formation, this paper analyses empirical data collected during qualitative research in a British primary sc…
A ‘different kind’ of professional? Case studies of the work of parent‐centred organizations
This paper considers the positions of three professionals working with parents in what we call parent‐centred organizations. Our aim is to explore the extent of the ‘space’ they have available to them to construct their own understandings of their role, and to implement their priorities and agendas. We consider how these individual versions to professionalism articulate with the context in which these three people work, and the implications for t…
Becoming a ‘Better’ Parent? Motherhood, education and transition
The focus of this paper is a parent education group, offering parents an accredited practical skills course, which aims to familiarise them with educational activities suitable for young children. Drawing on theories from Gramsci and set within a context informed by social policy analysis, this paper examines both the content of the course and the experiences of the female students. It looks in detail at the discourse of ‘sensitive mothering’ and…
This won't take long
In this paper, the focus is on one particular research project, conducted in the UK, which studied the role of parent groups and organizations in relation to the mainstream education system. The authors seek to analyze and evaluate access to the different "structures of feeling" inhabited by the various respondents involved in the project. Using the project as a lens, a critical case, the relationships between respondents and researchers are prob…
Family Resources and Community Social Capital as Routes to Valued Employment in the UK
This paper analyses existing research on social capital, school choice and educational attainment to consider the questions that need to be answered if the role of social capital in reducing or extending social inequality is to be addressed. We identify a need to distinguish between: social surveillance and genuinely educative forms of social capital; between parent–pupil interactions and family: school links that generate positive external spin-…
Is That an Action Man in There? Masculinity as an Imaginative Act of Self-creation
The concept of masculinity has been critiqued either as an ideological effect of patriarchy or as a play of discourse. This occurs at a time when there is renewed interest in biologically reductive theories of gender, and in the context (in the UK) of public disquiet about boys' academic performance. This paper argues that while masculinity cannot be regarded as a foundational subject, the reality of the category 'masculinity' in the daily lives …
Resilience and refusal
In this paper I attempt to do three things. Firstly, I explore the concept of resistance in the sociology of youth and education. I raise questions about the power of this concept to provide a descriptive language for understanding the way young people generally, and in this paper, young African‐Caribbean men in London schools, deal with the contexts of institutional racism. I then go on to suggest the concepts of ‘resilience’ and ‘refusal’ as pr…
Migration, race and education
The promise of evidence‐based policy is that social scientific research can lead to rational planning that will lead to improved outcomes and life chances for people across the whole spectrum of social provision. This article argues that evidence is politically mobilised to legitimise the reproduction of racial and social advantage and construct racialised groups as targets for policy intervention. It is suggested that migration and education pol…
Challenging lifelong learning policy discourse
Can adult educational research on learning and identity counter the individualising of neoliberal government policy that seeks to constrain educational ‘choices’ to those that contribute to government economic agendas? This article notes the recent move within post-compulsory education research towards an engagement with Bourdieu because of perceived limitations in the research and analysis of learner identities. In particular, Bourdieu is drawn …
Trust schools and the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest
This paper sets out the theoretical and methodological approach of a study of the politics of persuasion and the mobilisation of interest in relation to the Trust schools initiative in England. Drawing on the discourse theoretical approach of Laclau and Mouffe the paper argues that the politics of consensus associated with New Labour reconfigures the field of politics, closing down legitimate democratic space. Building on this approach and that o…
The making of Irish-speaking Ireland
This paper is about linguistic justice issues in the post-colonial context of an Irish-speaking region in the south-west of Ireland, drawing on a study of political mobilization around the Irish-medium education policy of the region’s secondary school. I explore how the incipient Irish state was involved in a nationalizing project of developing strategies to constitute the Irish polity into a particular nation bound by an language of ‘archaic bel…
Struggling for visibility in higher education
What happens when neoliberalism as a structural and structuring force is taken up within institutions of higher education, and works upon academics in higher education individually? Employing a critical authoethnographic approach, this paper explores the way technologies of research performance management, specifically, work to produce academics (and academic managers) as particular kinds of neoliberal subject. The struggle to make oneself visibl…
How does research performativity and selectivity impact on the non-core regions of Europe? The case for a new research agenda
‘Reconceptualising internationalisation through students’ eyes’
This paper presents findings from an Irish qualitative study of postgraduate, female, international students. It focuses on their narrations of internationalisation, in respect of events leading them to become international students, and their reflections on their academic, interpersonal and societal experiences in Ireland. International students are generally understudied and marginalised as metaphorical ‘others’ within global education policies…
Central and Eastern Europe in Academic Internationalization
The article reflects on knowledge production in the context of research internationalization, seen as an aspect of a broader trend in the changing higher education and other academic institutions. It focuses on Central and Eastern Europe as a post-communist and (semi)peripheral region, which has been the subject of historical and theoretical analysis often accompanied by epistemological reflection among researchers. As an introduction to the them…
After the ‘refugee crisis’ and the Yerevan Communiqué
The Yerevan Communiqué represents a possible high-point in European responses to the 2015 ‘refugee crisis’ and the role of higher education in building an inclusive Europe. If that is so, then the post-2015 period can be seen as a retreat from the moral stance taken in the Communiqué. This paper takes a different perspective and argues that the post-2015 period reveals tensions at the heart of the European project and the role of higher education…
The multiple temporalities of policy-oriented sociology of education
This paper argues that Reinhart Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities is a useful basis for a historical imagination to work alongside the sociological imaginations in policy-oriented sociology of education work. More recently within the social and humanistic sciences there has been a turn towards temporal considerations. Often this is animated by critiques of modernist or linear conceptions of progress, or a sense that earlier progressivi…
Sociology (17 works) · Political science (15 works) · Law (11 works) · Gender Studies (10 works) · Epistemology (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Social science (9 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (8 works) · Gender Studies (7 works) · Law (7 works)