Let's Talk About Sociology of Education

Dr. Melanie Ní Dhuinn is a Senior Lecturer in Education in Marino Institute of Education and previously worked as an Assistant Professor of Teacher Education in the School of Education in Trinity College and Director of the Professional Master of Education in Hibernia College. She is a qualified post-primary teacher (Physical Education and Gaeilge) and now works across primary and post-primary teacher education as a Teacher Educator and a Researcher. In this podcast Melanie interviews leading researchers, academics, social justice activists, policy makers, curriculum specialists and practitioners as they talk about the Sociology of Education across the continuum of education and how it looks in everyday reality in its many forms and guises. This is season two of her podcast; “Let’s Talk About the Sociology of Education”, you can listen to season one episodes here. This podcast was developed initially as a resource to support student teachers and others working in Initial Teacher Education to try and make sense of and demystify what can be abstract and dense sociological theories and recognise them in real-time practice. The podcast has gone from strength to strength, now boasting global listenership and interest appealing to many, inside and outside the field of education. The podcast is broad ranging and covers a range of sociological perspectives, experiences and discussions including Social Justice, Equity and Equality, Disability, Inclusion,Cultural Capital, Schools and Schooling, education systems, technology in education, LGBTQI+ experiences in education, values, beliefs, gender in education, global citizenship, the family and school, emotion in sociology and much more. Tune in to learn from expert researchers, academics and practitioners as we discuss everything and anything sociological within the field of education.

Episodes

S2 Episode Fifteen: Dr. Anne Marie Kavanagh "Decolonising the curriculum: Creating a more inclusive, diverse, and critically-engaged approach to education"

April 10, 2025 • 48 mins

In this episode I chat to Anne Marie Kavanagh (PhD, FHEA). Anne Marie’s episode is called Decolonising the curriculum: Creating a more inclusive, diverse, and critically-engaged approach to education. We discuss the concept of decolonizing the curriculum and its importance in creating a more inclusive and diverse educational approach and Anne Marie explains that decolonizing involves questioning what counts as knowledge and whose k...

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S2 Episode Fourteen: Dr. Alison Egan "Navigating the Third Space in Higher Education Institutions"

March 20, 2025 • 54 mins

In this episode I speak to Dr. Alison Egan in an episode entitled Navigating the Third Space in Higher Education Institutions where we discuss the concept of the "third space" in higher education, which is the juxtaposition of academic and administrative roles. Alison Egan, PhD is a Director of IT & eLearning at Marino Institute of Education, Dublin, Ireland since 2008. Her research interests are focused on digital literacy; artif...

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S2 Episode Thirteen: Niall Mulpeter "From Policy to Practice: Enacting Values in Publicly Managed Schools through Communities of Practice and Professional Learning Communities"

March 6, 2025 • 47 mins

In this episode I speak to Niall Mulpeter in an episode entitled From Policy to Practice: Enacting Values in Publicly Managed Schools through Communities of Practice and Professional Learning Communities. Niall is an Educational Policy and Development Officer with Education and Training Boards Ireland (ETBI) and a final-year PhD scholar at the University of Limerick School of Education. With over 20 years of experience in education...

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S2 Episode Twelve: Professor Dympna Devine "What has social justice got to do with pedagogy?"

February 27, 2025 • 51 mins

In this episode I speak to Professor Dympna Devine in an episode entitled, "What has social justice got to do with pedagogy?" a title which Dympna explains was inspired by a question from a student in a module that she taught on equalities and social justice. Professor Devine is a full Professor of Education in UCD School of Education. Her specialist field is sociology, researching at the intersection of sociologies of education a...

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S2 Episode Eleven: Declan Qualter “Parents as partners in education: Rhetoric and reality in an era of digital and AI transformation”

February 20, 2025 • 53 mins

Declan Qualter is the Practice Placement Supervisor for the BEd with Gaeilge and/or Modern Languages Programme in the UCD School of Education. He also teaches on the Professional Masters in Education programme. Declan is a PhD candidate in UCD, with his doctoral research focusing on parental involvement in children's home-based digital learning. Declan's other research interests are centred on the digital transformation of educat...

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S2 Episode Ten: Dr. Audrey Bryan “Enduring Inequalities in Education: Whither Sociology?”

February 13, 2025 • 58 mins

Dr. Audrey Bryan is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the School of Human Development at Dublin City University’s Institute of Education (DCU IoE). Her teaching spans a number of undergraduate as well as post-graduate programmes in the sociology of childhood, sociology of education, advanced research methods and sustainability. Her most recent research advances critical perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and Education,...

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S2 Episode Nine: Highlights episode

February 7, 2025 • 40 mins

In this episode Dr. Melanie Ní Dhuinn revisits the eight episodes released in the first half of season two. She highlights key discussions from the first eight episodes of Season Two and recaps on topics covered, including interviews with ten experts on various education-related sociological issues. Key points include the challenges of full inclusion in education, reimagining education for marginalized youth, and the integration o...

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S2 Episode Eight: Dr. Michelle Share "Food Matters: It's not just what you eat, but where, how, and with whom"

December 19, 2024 • 59 mins

Dr Michelle Share is a Senior Research Fellow at the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. She is a sociologist with extensive experience in the conduct of multi-site research and evaluation projects in child and youth settings. She has researched and published on the role of grandparents in childcare provision; children and parents who use intellectual disability services; educational access programmes at second and thir...

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S2 Episode Seven: Dr. Michael Hallissy Digital Education – Trusting teachers to make informed decisions to best meet the needs of their learners

November 14, 2024 • 49 mins

Michael is a former primary school teacher who has over 25 years’ experience working in the field of digital education. He developed his interest in digital education in the early 1980s as an undergraduate student teacher in Marino by experimenting with the college’s newly acquired Apple Macintosh computer. His first research project focused on the use of a BBC Micro in Irish primary schools in the mid-1980s. He later pursued a Mas...

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S2 Episode Six: Deirdre Hogan and Dr. Joanne O’ Flaherty “Ubuntu Voices: Exploring possible futures for Global Citizenship Education”

November 6, 2024 • 48 mins

Deirdre Hogan is co-ordinator of the Ubuntu Network, an Irish Aid funded strategic partnership that supports the integration of Global Citizenship Education into post primary Initial Teacher Education in Ireland. She has held this role since 2006 and her work centres on building capacity of educators to critically explore and engage with key global development issues of our time. Deirdre holds a Degree in Science Education, a Highe...

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S2 Episode Five: Learning as an emotional practice: emotion in the sociology of education

October 31, 2024 • 42 mins

My guest in this episode is Dr. Roland Tormey. Roland is a sociologist and learning scientist, researching and teaching on engineering education in EPFL, Switzerland. Prior to 2011, he worked in teacher education and in curriculum development in Ireland. His recent research focuses on diversity and equality issues in learning, on the role of emotion in science and engineering learning, and on engineering ethics education. His re...

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S2 Episode Four: Schools as sites of tension and contradiction

October 24, 2024 • 58 mins

Professor Gerry Jeffers’ experience as an educator has been wide ranging. In his twenties, he taught in a school in Kenya, East Africa. That experience shaped much of his subsequent work as a teacher, guidance counselor, school leader, national coordinator of the support service for Transition Year, lecturer in the Education Department at Maynooth University and as a writer. In the 1980s, Gerry edited Young Citizen, a social educat...

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S2 Episode Three: Professor Jacquelynne Boivin and Professor Sheena Rancher

October 17, 2024 • 49 mins

“Irish Classrooms Opening American Minds to New Aspects of Social Justice Education.” Dr. Jacquelynne Anne Boivin is an Assistant Professor of Elementary and Early Childhood Education at Bridgewater State University in Bridgewater, MA, USA, where she supervises student teachers, mentors honors thesis projects, and teaches math methods to elementary teacher candidates and seminars on deconstructing racism by integrating schools an...

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S2 Episode Two: Professor Michael Shevlin "Reimagining Education for Young Marginalised People"

October 10, 2024 • 49 mins

Michael is Professor in Inclusive Education and Director of the Trinity Centre for People with Intellectual Disabilities in Trinity College Dublin. His teaching and research have focused on facilitating the inclusion of children and young people with special educational needs within mainstream schools, promoting the voice of marginalised people within decision making processes that affect their lives, and addressing access issues f...

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S2 Episode One: Professor Joanne Banks "All means all, but does it?"

October 3, 2024 • 50 mins

Joanne is a lecturer and researcher in inclusive education at the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin. Joanne worked for over a decade in education research in the Economic and Social Research Institute on education research before moving to Trinity. She has a PhD in History from University College Dublin, and a degree in Geography and Sociology from Trinity College Dublin. Her research interests are in the field of inclu...

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Season 2 Trailer

September 30, 2024 • 1 min

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Episode Seventeen Professor Andrew Loxley “Mucky Pictures, Visual Sociology”

July 9, 2021 • 51 mins

My guest in this, the final episode of the ‘Let’s Talk About Sociology of Education’ podcast is Professor Andrew Loxley from the School of Education in Trinity College, Dublin. Andrew is the Director for undergraduate programmes in School of Education and he is also the Director of the Doctor of Education programme in Trinity. Andrew is one of the many colleagues I work with in the School of Education and he was also my doctorate s...

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Episode Sixteen Dr. Rose Dolan, “One Step Beyond: Sociology and the three capitals”

June 30, 2021 • 64 mins

My guest in this episode is Dr. Rose Dolan, Associate Professor and Teacher Educator in the Department of Education in Maynooth University. Rose led the postgraduate initial teacher education programme from 2003 to 2016 in Maynooth University and is currently the programme leader of the Doctor of Education programme in and she also leads the the Teacher Education strands on the M.Ed and the Doctorate. Rose is a qualified Science, B...

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Episode Fifteen: Dr. Kathryn Will and Dr. Robin D Johnson “The Importance of Social and Emotional Learning for Teachers: Impact on Learning Communities”

June 23, 2021 • 68 mins

My guests in this episode are Dr. Kathryn Will, Assistant Professor of Literacy education in the University of Maine, Farmington in the USA and Dr. Robin D. Johnston, who is Associate Professor and field based experience coordinator, Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi, USA. I was very fortunate to meet both Kathryn and Robin a couple of years ago at the Clinical Fellows symposium in the States at the Association of Teacher Educat...

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Episode Fourteen: Professor A.Lin Goodwin “Beliefs, Diversity and Social Justice for new teachers”

June 16, 2021 • 48 mins

My guest in this episode is Professor A. Lin Goodwin. Professor Goodwin is Dean of the Faculty of Education in the University of Hong Kong and was previously the Evenden Professor of Education in Teachers College, Columbia. She is a renowned teacher education expert globally and has researched and published broadly on many aspects of teacher education and related topics. Lin’s research interests include teacher and teacher educatio...

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Let's Talk About Sociology of Education

Episodes

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}S2 Episode Fourteen: Dr. Alison Egan "Navigating the Third Space in Higher Education Institutions"

S2 Episode Thirteen: Niall Mulpeter "From Policy to Practice: Enacting Values in Publicly Managed Schools through Communities of Practice and Professional Learning Communities"

S2 Episode Twelve: Professor Dympna Devine "What has social justice got to do with pedagogy?"

S2 Episode Eleven: Declan Qualter “Parents as partners in education: Rhetoric and reality in an era of digital and AI transformation”

S2 Episode Ten: Dr. Audrey Bryan “Enduring Inequalities in Education: Whither Sociology?”

S2 Episode Nine: Highlights episode

S2 Episode Eight: Dr. Michelle Share "Food Matters: It's not just what you eat, but where, how, and with whom"

S2 Episode Seven: Dr. Michael Hallissy Digital Education – Trusting teachers to make informed decisions to best meet the needs of their learners

S2 Episode Six: Deirdre Hogan and Dr. Joanne O’ Flaherty “Ubuntu Voices: Exploring possible futures for Global Citizenship Education”

S2 Episode Five: Learning as an emotional practice: emotion in the sociology of education

S2 Episode Four: Schools as sites of tension and contradiction

S2 Episode Three: Professor Jacquelynne Boivin and Professor Sheena Rancher

S2 Episode Two: Professor Michael Shevlin "Reimagining Education for Young Marginalised People"

S2 Episode One: Professor Joanne Banks "All means all, but does it?"

Season 2 Trailer

Episode Seventeen Professor Andrew Loxley “Mucky Pictures, Visual Sociology”

Episode Sixteen Dr. Rose Dolan, “One Step Beyond: Sociology and the three capitals”

Episode Fifteen: Dr. Kathryn Will and Dr. Robin D Johnson “The Importance of Social and Emotional Learning for Teachers: Impact on Learning Communities”

Episode Fourteen: Professor A.Lin Goodwin “Beliefs, Diversity and Social Justice for new teachers”

Popular Podcasts

S2 Episode Fourteen: Dr. Alison Egan "Navigating the Third Space in Higher Education Institutions"