George Koutsouris
Biographic Data
| ID | 4605880 |
|---|---|
| NAME | George Koutsouris |
| GIVEN NAMES | George |
| FAMILY NAME | Koutsouris |
| SIGNATURE | KOUTSOURIS G |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Exeter |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3044-4027 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 33 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2014 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
The absent presence of disability in British higher education
Rates of disability disclosure are steadily increasing in British higher education (HE), with 18% of the student population having a known disability in 2023/24. It might be assumed that progress is being made with increased representation, rights and support for disabled students. However, drawing on interviews with staff who lead disability support services across a range of British HE institutions (HEIs), we find that disability remains an ‘ab…
The Co-option and Commodification of ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’ in Elite Schooling
The field of elite schooling is subject to neoliberal rationalities, governed by the forces of competition, choice and marketisation. Schools often engage in promotional strategies on their websites and in prospectuses to appeal to upper/middle-class ‘clientele’. This article demonstrates the ways in which elite schools in England are seeking to gain positional advantage through mobilising discourse and strategies relating to mental health and we…
Mental health and gender discourses in school
This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this record
Do we have to rethink inclusive pedagogies for secondary schools? A critical systematic review of the international literature
This article builds on the findings of a critical systematic review that aimed to explore understandings and applications of inclusive pedagogies in the secondary school. Inclusive pedagogies are often conceptualised as both a set of strategies that aim to ensure access to learning for all students, and as value principles that reflect particular views on inclusion; this is why they tend to be approached in diverse ways. We were particularly inte…
Conducting school-based research during Covid
This paper presents findings from a small-scale pilot evaluation of the Silver Stories programme. Silver Stories involves school-age children reading to older people in the community and is a way of addressing literacy and emotional difficulties, as well as enhancing wellbeing. The authors collected and analysed questionnaire and interview data after a school term of programme implementation, across five schools in England and Wales, during the p…
Girls, mental health and academic achievement
Over the past two decades, there has been increasing international concern over the prevalence of mental health difficulties amongst children and young people. In the English context, particular concerns have been raised about the "state" of girls' and young women's psychological health. Figuring highly in both academic and media debate is the impact of school pressures and the performance demands placed on girls in relation to academic achieveme…
They think it’s trendy to have a disability/mental-illness’
Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an ‘elite’ sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educatio…
Agonism in education
Within political philosophy and particularly in the work of Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt, "agonism" has been described as representing the notion of being able to challenge and dissent in a productive way. However, little is known about how agonism is used in the educational literature, other than some applications relevant to democratic education. This paper considers the use of agonism in the educational literature drawing on the findings o…
Critically considering the ‘inclusive curriculum’ in higher education
This paper presents a critical interrogation of the recent drive towards the ‘inclusive curriculum’ in higher education (HE). Our arguments are grounded in the findings of a systematic scoping review that sought to understand how researchers have, to date, understood, conceptualised and theorised the inclusive curriculum in HE. The findings indicate that many researchers adopted largely ‘technicist’ understandings of inclusion as learning effecti…
A critical exploration of inclusion policies of elite UK universities
Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have lost its critical edge and is in many cases reduced to ‘chatter’. To explore inclusion in this context…
What are inclusive pedagogies in higher education? A systematic scoping review
‘Inclusive pedagogies’ have been recommended as an approach for addressing increased student diversity in the university classroom. However, to date, no research has sought to map the field of inclusive pedagogies in higher education (HE) to establish how researchers have conceptualised and investigated this phenomenon. In this systematic scoping review, five databases were searched for literature published on the topic of inclusive pedagogies in…
How Well Do We Understand Social Inclusion in Education
The paper draws on the findings of a small-scale empirical study to discuss why the project of inclusion, despite a long history of legislative efforts from the Salamanca Statement onwards, still appears to be troubling. The study used scenarios to explore tensions between inclusion and individual choice experienced by young people in the context of everyday social interaction with reference to the intersection between disability, ethnicity, gend…
What exactly do RCT findings tell us in education research
This article addresses issues related to whether null randomised control trial ( RCT ) findings can by themselves be a secure indicator of programme failure. This is done by drawing on the findings of the evaluation of the Integrated Group Reading ( IGR ) programme using a number of teacher case studies. The case studies illustrate how the same intervention can be implemented differently in local circumstances, with different outcomes. The differ…
Inclusion and homophily
This paper reports findings from a study about school staff’s perceptions of the preferences for social interaction that young people have with similar and different others. This tension was explored empirically using scenarios of moral dilemmas to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff from special and mainstream secondary schools. The issue was explored with reference to a tension between social inclusion, the principle o…
What are inclusive pedagogies in higher education? A systematic scoping review
‘Inclusive pedagogies’ have been recommended as an approach for addressing increased student diversity in the university classroom. However, to date, no research has sought to map the field of inclusive pedagogies in higher education (HE) to establish how researchers have conceptualised and investigated this phenomenon. In this systematic scoping review, five databases were searched for literature published on the topic of inclusive pedagogies in…
A critical exploration of inclusion policies of elite UK universities
Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have lost its critical edge and is in many cases reduced to ‘chatter’. To explore inclusion in this context…
What exactly do RCT findings tell us in education research
This article addresses issues related to whether null randomised control trial ( RCT ) findings can by themselves be a secure indicator of programme failure. This is done by drawing on the findings of the evaluation of the Integrated Group Reading ( IGR ) programme using a number of teacher case studies. The case studies illustrate how the same intervention can be implemented differently in local circumstances, with different outcomes. The differ…
How Well Do We Understand Social Inclusion in Education
The paper draws on the findings of a small-scale empirical study to discuss why the project of inclusion, despite a long history of legislative efforts from the Salamanca Statement onwards, still appears to be troubling. The study used scenarios to explore tensions between inclusion and individual choice experienced by young people in the context of everyday social interaction with reference to the intersection between disability, ethnicity, gend…
Mental health and gender discourses in school
This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this record
Inclusion and homophily
This paper reports findings from a study about school staff’s perceptions of the preferences for social interaction that young people have with similar and different others. This tension was explored empirically using scenarios of moral dilemmas to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff from special and mainstream secondary schools. The issue was explored with reference to a tension between social inclusion, the principle o…
Inclusion and homophily
This paper reports findings from a study about school staff’s perceptions of the preferences for social interaction that young people have with similar and different others. This tension was explored empirically using scenarios of moral dilemmas to conduct in-depth semi-structured interviews with school staff from special and mainstream secondary schools. The issue was explored with reference to a tension between social inclusion, the principle o…
What exactly do RCT findings tell us in education research
This article addresses issues related to whether null randomised control trial ( RCT ) findings can by themselves be a secure indicator of programme failure. This is done by drawing on the findings of the evaluation of the Integrated Group Reading ( IGR ) programme using a number of teacher case studies. The case studies illustrate how the same intervention can be implemented differently in local circumstances, with different outcomes. The differ…
What are inclusive pedagogies in higher education? A systematic scoping review
‘Inclusive pedagogies’ have been recommended as an approach for addressing increased student diversity in the university classroom. However, to date, no research has sought to map the field of inclusive pedagogies in higher education (HE) to establish how researchers have conceptualised and investigated this phenomenon. In this systematic scoping review, five databases were searched for literature published on the topic of inclusive pedagogies in…
How Well Do We Understand Social Inclusion in Education
The paper draws on the findings of a small-scale empirical study to discuss why the project of inclusion, despite a long history of legislative efforts from the Salamanca Statement onwards, still appears to be troubling. The study used scenarios to explore tensions between inclusion and individual choice experienced by young people in the context of everyday social interaction with reference to the intersection between disability, ethnicity, gend…
Agonism in education
Within political philosophy and particularly in the work of Chantal Mouffe and Hannah Arendt, "agonism" has been described as representing the notion of being able to challenge and dissent in a productive way. However, little is known about how agonism is used in the educational literature, other than some applications relevant to democratic education. This paper considers the use of agonism in the educational literature drawing on the findings o…
Critically considering the ‘inclusive curriculum’ in higher education
This paper presents a critical interrogation of the recent drive towards the ‘inclusive curriculum’ in higher education (HE). Our arguments are grounded in the findings of a systematic scoping review that sought to understand how researchers have, to date, understood, conceptualised and theorised the inclusive curriculum in HE. The findings indicate that many researchers adopted largely ‘technicist’ understandings of inclusion as learning effecti…
A critical exploration of inclusion policies of elite UK universities
Inclusion is seen as an ethical obligation, grounded in notions of equity and social justice for all groups and at all stages of education, with higher education (HE) representing a distinctive space where the inclusion agenda is becoming more influential. However, inclusion is also increasingly recognised as an ambiguous concept that might have lost its critical edge and is in many cases reduced to ‘chatter’. To explore inclusion in this context…
Conducting school-based research during Covid
This paper presents findings from a small-scale pilot evaluation of the Silver Stories programme. Silver Stories involves school-age children reading to older people in the community and is a way of addressing literacy and emotional difficulties, as well as enhancing wellbeing. The authors collected and analysed questionnaire and interview data after a school term of programme implementation, across five schools in England and Wales, during the p…
Girls, mental health and academic achievement
Over the past two decades, there has been increasing international concern over the prevalence of mental health difficulties amongst children and young people. In the English context, particular concerns have been raised about the "state" of girls' and young women's psychological health. Figuring highly in both academic and media debate is the impact of school pressures and the performance demands placed on girls in relation to academic achieveme…
They think it’s trendy to have a disability/mental-illness’
Research has long demonstrated the exclusion and Othering experienced by young people with disabilities in education. This paper presents findings from an ethnographic study conducted in an ‘elite’ sixth-form college in England, set against the backdrop of a shifting social, political, and cultural landscape, where neo-liberal discourses of dis/ability and healthism—centring on mental health and wellbeing—are becoming further embedded in educatio…
Do we have to rethink inclusive pedagogies for secondary schools? A critical systematic review of the international literature
This article builds on the findings of a critical systematic review that aimed to explore understandings and applications of inclusive pedagogies in the secondary school. Inclusive pedagogies are often conceptualised as both a set of strategies that aim to ensure access to learning for all students, and as value principles that reflect particular views on inclusion; this is why they tend to be approached in diverse ways. We were particularly inte…
The Co-option and Commodification of ‘Mental Health and Wellbeing’ in Elite Schooling
The field of elite schooling is subject to neoliberal rationalities, governed by the forces of competition, choice and marketisation. Schools often engage in promotional strategies on their websites and in prospectuses to appeal to upper/middle-class ‘clientele’. This article demonstrates the ways in which elite schools in England are seeking to gain positional advantage through mobilising discourse and strategies relating to mental health and we…
Mental health and gender discourses in school
This is the final version. Available on open access from Routledge via the DOI in this record
The absent presence of disability in British higher education
Rates of disability disclosure are steadily increasing in British higher education (HE), with 18% of the student population having a known disability in 2023/24. It might be assumed that progress is being made with increased representation, rights and support for disabled students. However, drawing on interviews with staff who lead disability support services across a range of British HE institutions (HEIs), we find that disability remains an ‘ab…
Political science (11 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Pedagogy (7 works) · Context (archaeology) (6 works) · Inclusion (mineral) (6 works) · Law (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Curriculum (4 works)