My guest in this podcast episode is Dr. Vivian Rath. Vivian is an adjunct teaching fellow in Trinity College Dublin and recently completed his Ph.D on the “social engagement experiences of disabled students in higher education in Ireland”. He obtained a Master’s in management from Smurfit Business School where he researched the employment of graduates with disabilities. He is a member of the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Disability Advisory Committee. This committee has a role in the monitoring of the implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. He has extensive experience providing supports to people with disabilities accessing education and employment opportunities. A person with a disability, Vivian has been a disability activist for many years, campaigning for greater participation of people with disabilities in public and political life. 

In this episode, Vivian discusses the social engagement of disabled students in Higher Education including in Initial Teacher Education. We talk about his current work and his research and how his research is significant in terms of creating awareness and seeking to widen participation in Higher Education with a specific focus on disabled students. Vivian believes that we have a long way to go to address real engagement of disabled people in Initial Teacher Education. We discuss barriers for disabled students in accessing the teaching profession at the entry point and challenges for disabled student teachers on ITE courses.

He emphasises the importance of the visibility of disabled teachers across the continuum of teacher education and how role models are critical for aspiring teachers and for enabling a more diverse teaching profession. Vivian recalls his own education journey from post-primary school onwards and describes how he has progressed through many stages of education up to his PhD and beyond.

This is a must-listen episode; enlightening, encouraging and most of all very interesting. Join us!

My guest in this podcast episode is Dr. Shelli-Ann Garland. Shelli-Ann is a teaching fellow in the School of Education in Trinity College Dublin and a research assistant on the @DEEPEN project Her research interests include Sociology and Foundations of Education, Educational Stratification, Teacher Education, Lifelong Learning and Volunteer Leadership. 

In this episode Shelli-Ann introduces some of the main Sociology of Education theories and how they look in “real-time” and describes what our “sociological imagination” is, “the ability to see things socially and how they interact and influence each other”. We talk about Shelli-Ann’s own research on volunteer identity, informal learning and community based learning, connections and disconnects between policy and practice and how Covid has impacted how we teach Sociology of Education. Shelli-Ann has some questions for me too around my own research and sociological connections between family and community and the school.

This podcast includes interviews between Dr. Melanie Ní Dhuinn, an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education in Trinity College Dublin and leading researchers, academics, school principals, social justice activists, teachers and policymakers as they talk about the Sociology of Education and how it looks in day to day reality in its many forms and guises. 

The podcast has been developed as a resource to support student teachers and others to try and make sense of and demystify some of the abstract and dense sociological theories and recognise them in real-time in practice.  The podcast covers different Sociological Perspectives, Exploring LGBTQ+ educational experiences, Social Justice, Equity, Equality & Access, Disability and Inclusion, Cultural Capital, Values, Beliefs, Global Citizenship, The Family and the School and more.