
Harry DanielsUniversity of Oxford | OX · Department of Education
Harry Daniels
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203
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Introduction
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February 2013 - present
Publications
Publications (203)
Background: Research suggests that experiencing school exclusion, including permanent exclusions and suspension is associated with poorer psychosocial outcomes for children; however, this association is vulnerable to confounding. Methods: Using a large UK-based longitudinal study, the Millennium Cohort Study (n=9551; 129 treated and 129 matched con...
Background
Previous evidence has suggested a strong association between school exclusion and health outcomes. However, as health risks are themselves related to the risk of experiencing a school exclusion, it has been challenging to determine the extent to which school exclusion impacts later health outcomes, as opposed to reflecting a marker for p...
Understanding and promoting agency are crucial to addressing urgent social problems of our time. Through agency, we can take transformative steps toward the future that ought to be. This book shows how contemporary conceptualizations from cultural-historical activity theory can inform research and practice that fosters positive change. At the core...
The COVID-19 crisis has deepened educational and social inequalities and exacerbated different forms of exclusion from education. This article reviews current concerns about formal and informal disciplinary school exclusion in England. Educational policy discourse in England has tended to seek individual reasons for exclusion rather than develop an...
Exclusion from school can be regarded as a seemingly simple but in fact a rather complex intervention in response to the “wicked problem” of behavior in schools. This manuscript will discuss what counts as evidence that may used to inform policy and judgments on practices of exclusion. The role of evidence, and how this is measured, has long been a...
The interface between mental health and schools has become a major focus of policy and practice. School attendance is important and impacts a range of outcomes, from academic performance, to children and young people's mental health. In this book, experts from the education and mental health sectors have collaborated to produce a practical guide to...
Previous evidence has suggested a strong association between school exclusion and mental health. However, as mental health risks are themselves related to the risk of experiencing a school exclusion, it has been challenging to determine the extent to which school exclusion impacts later mental health, as opposed to reflecting a marker for pre-exist...
This article focusses on the lessons learnt from the collaborative design of guidance for new build schools in England about the processes of school design, construction and occupation. The study involved headteachers, school building commissioners, teachers and wider school communities thinking about the pedagogic implications of the production of...
Background:
Previous research suggests that school exclusion during childhood is a precursor to social exclusion in adulthood. Past literature on the consequences of school exclusion is, however, scarce and mainly focused on short-term outcomes such as educational attainment, delinquency, and mental health in early adolescence. Moreover, this evid...
A sense of school belonging has been associated with a number of positive outcomes for young people Two core aspects are feeling part of the school, and feeling safe. This paper examines qualitative data from a mixed methods questionnaire designed to inform schools on the barriers and supports to participation in school life and the relationship wi...
Background. Previous research suggests that school exclusion during childhood is a precursor to social exclusion in adulthood. Past literature on the consequences of school exclusion is, however, scarce and mainly focused on short term outcomes such as educational attainment, delinquency, and mental health in early adolescence. Moreover, this evide...
Pupils with Social Emotional and Mental Health (SEMH) needs are disproportionately excluded from schools in England. Drawing on data collected from interviews with Local Authority Education Officers in 2017/18 in a project that looked at disparities in rates of permanent exclusion across the UK, this article explores how the influence of perverse i...
Prevention of school exclusion is a major UK policy concern in the COVID-19 era of economic uncertainty, speculation about the possible futures for social cohesion, and alarming reports about the prevalence of children’s mental health difficulties and eroded sense of well-being and security. This Special Issue on school exclusion is drawn from the...
This paper seeks to further develop and refine a theory of the ways in which artefacts created by humans direct and deflect the attention of groups and individuals as they act in specific institutional settings. It draws on the writings of Basil Bernstein and Lev Vygotsky. These are two bodies of theory that have strengths which, to some extent, ad...
Students’ experience of learning, relating and belonging are crucial to their participation in school. With ever growing concern about young people’s mental health and levels of informal and formal exclusion it is timely to investigate how schools can be supported in meeting the social and psychological needs of learners. The focus of this paper is...
Purpose
Supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students is an important yet challenging part of school educators’ work. The purpose of this paper is to investigate advice-seeking patterns around the issue of supporting the learning and wellbeing of vulnerable students, among professional staff in six English secondary schools. The pape...
Understanding the structure of staff advice relationships and the factors that facilitate (and hinder) the flow of resources within schools is key to school improvement. Our study examines school staff advice networks for supporting vulnerable learners using Exponential Random Graph Models (ERGMs). We investigate the individual and structural mecha...
En los últimos 30 años ha surgido una tensión en Reino Unido entre las políticas diseñadas para alcanzar la excelencia educativa y las políticas que buscan promover una práctica inclusiva. La descentralización y consiguiente traspaso de competencias a las cuatro jurisdicciones de Reino Unido ha llevado a diferencias en las prácticas desarrolladas a...
This article draws on findings from the first cross‐national study of school exclusion in the four jurisdictions of the UK. It casts new light on the crucial aspects of children's education that lead to school exclusion. It investigates the reasons for the UK disparities, as well as the policy and practice in place. The focus of this article is on...
This article draws on findings from the first cross-national study of school exclusions in the four jurisdictions of the UK. It sketches factors associated with the past research with reductions in exclusions. It then reports interview data gathered in England in 2018 from five specialist officers working in two Local Authorities and a senior offic...
This article is concerned with the influences that are brought to bear on the design of school buildings and the effects that the design of these buildings have on those who teach and learn in them. The article also focuses on the ways in which design is altered in and through the practices of these occupants. We argue that there is a mutual shapin...
The 1978 Warnock Report made the case in the United Kingdom for a number of actions that, it was argued, would make the integration and support of young people with Special Educational Needs more effective. These included: a cohesive multi-agency approach in assessment and determination of special educational need and subsequent provision; early in...
In the South African context of high HIV prevalence, sexual relationships are entwined with risk. This qualitative study in a rural context examined how young people negotiate sexual practices and engage with this risk. Data was gathered from men and women
(aged 15 to 33) in eight focus groups and 11 individual interviews. Abdication of self-care a...
In this paper I draw a distinction between two strands of argument that have evolved in the wake of Vygotsky’s early 20th century writing. I examine key methodological differences between sociocultural relativism and historical materialism. I then consider the pedagogical implications of these differences. My concern is that the all too common west...
In this chapter we will argue that drama provides young people with opportunities for exploring possibilities of ways of being in the world. Our suggestion is that these opportunities of ‘being other,’ of reflecting on one’s identity in the social world, are facilitated by experiences of being in role in the safety of settings that are an important...
This paper explores the influences of design on the perceptions and actions of students and teachers at four UK secondary schools. Typical post occupancy evaluations focus on environmental issues such as acoustics, lighting and temperature, using predominantly quantitative methods that often fail to explore how different environmental and social fa...
This paper focuses on understanding and exploring how a group of university engineering and science tutor educators learn and assimilate new conceptions about their role in the face of the forces of globalisation that are transforming the system of higher education. This research paper adopts the notion of the Teacher Support Team (TST) as develope...
In this chapter we present the findings of an investigation into the ways in which the discourses and practices of school design produce educational spaces which influence the discourses and practices of teaching and learning when the building is occupied. This investigation involved the development of a methodology for systematically analysing the...
In this paper we present the findings of an investigation into the ways in which the discourses and practices of school design produce educational spaces which influence the discourses and practices of teaching and learning when the building is occupied. It expands notions of post occupancy evaluation (POE) research by exploring how the objects/mot...
Este artigo explora as maneiras pelas quais o design influencia as perceções e ações de estudantes e professores em cinco escolas secundárias do Reino Unido. O entendimento das diferentes práticas desenvolvidas nessas escolas vai além das típicas Avaliações Pós Ocupação (Post Occupancy Evaluations) que enfocam aspectos ambientais, como a aústica, a...
Neste artigo, discutirei a teoria da atividade. Este grupo altamente influente de escrita é visto como uma retomada e uma extensão das ideias originais Vygotskianas na formação social da mente por A.N. Leontiev (1978) e seus colegas que inicialmente trabalharam como parte do grupo de Vygotsky em Moscou e partiram para um novo cenário com novas ênfa...
In this paper I explore the extent to which two approaches to the social formation of mind are compatible and may be used to enrich and extend each other. These are: Activity Theory (AT) as derived from the work of the early Russian psychologists, Vygotsky and Leontiev, and the work of the sociologist Basil Bernstein. The purpose is to show how Ber...
The article focuses on some aspects of L.S. Vygotsky’s early works, which are interpreted as the under- lying basis of the cultural-historical theory and might be applied while conducting research in the framework of this scientific school. The concepts of “drama”, “pereghivanie” and “reflective communication” as well as their role in applying expe...
Este artículo aborda las formas en que las culturas de las instituciones y los patrones de interacción social ejercen un efecto formativo en el qué y cómo del aprendizaje. El modo en que se regulan las relaciones sociales de las instituciones tienen consecuencias cognitivas y afectivas para aquellos que viven y trabajan dentro de las mismas. El act...
Anxiety in children is common, impairs everyday functioning and increases the risk of severe mental health disorders in adulthood, yet few children with anxiety are identified and referred for treatment.
Objective
To investigate the clinical effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of a universal school-based preventative programme (FRIENDS) in reduci...
The point of departure of this chapter is the understanding that the way in which the social relations of institutions are regulated has cognitive and affective consequences for those who live and work inside them. The current state of the art in the social sciences struggles to provide a theoretical connection between specific forms, or modalities...
One of the central pillars of Vygotsky’s contribution to social science is his concept of mediation: the process through which the social and the individual mutually shape each other. His rich, complex and challenging texts focus on a nuanced notion of mediation that was not necessarily visible to those active in the command-and-control climate of...
Introduction
Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) is an effective psychological intervention for children and young people with anxiety disorders (James et al, 2013). This has led to interest in whether CBT programmes can be widely provided in schools to prevent or ameliorate anxiety symptoms in children.
Objective
Results from school based anxiety p...
In a bid to understand the relationship between school design and pedagogic practices, this article – which forms part of a larger project aimed at exploring students', teachers' and parents' perceptions of school spaces – focuses on how the design of a school funded as part of the Labour Government's Building Schools for the Future Programme (DfES...
The results of the international project oRising Powers dedicated to the analysis of the relationship between socio-economic changes, educational policy and personal well-being of children and youth in BRICS are discussed. The project Rising Powers was carried out with the support of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC, UK). The relat...
This chapter sketches some possibilities for the development of learning contexts for children and young people with learning differences that may be derived from the influence of Russian psychologist L. S. Vygotsky. It argues that these pedagogic possibilities should be implemented alongside the development of a curriculum that prepares all young...
Government policy in the United Kingdom offers new freedoms to the public sector that have enhanced the responsibilities of practitioners and make new demands on the systems tackling the often complex needs of vulnerable children and their families. Rapid changes such as these in national policy contexts require practitioners concerned with child p...
Background
Anxiety in children is common, impairs everyday functioning, and increases the risk of severe mental health disorders in adulthood. We investigated the effect of a classroom-based cognitive behaviour therapy prevention programme (FRIENDS) on anxiety symptoms in children.
Methods
Preventing Anxiety in Children though Education in Schools...
From consideration of children's rights in general and equal opportunities for disabled children in particular, it is important to consult children about barriers and supports to learning and participation. Finding appropriate and feasible ways, however, to incorporate this into educational programmes for younger children can present challenges. He...
Anxiety in children is common and incapacitating and increases the risk of mental health disorders in adulthood. Although effective interventions are available, few children are identified and referred for specialist treatment. Alternative approaches in which prevention programmes are delivered in school appear promising. However, comparatively lit...
In this chapter, empirical data from the AHRC funded Design Matters? research project are subjected to semiotic analysis according to a framework drawn from biosemiotics, Tarasti’s existential semiotics and Stables’ taxonomy of environmental literacies as functional, cultural and critical.
Schools in England (as elsewhere in Europe) have a duty to promote equality for disabled people and make reasonable adjustments for disabled children. There is, however, a degree of uncertainty about how well-placed parents are addressed to use the legislation to ensure their child’s needs. This paper presents data drawn from a national questionnai...
Background
Emotional problems such as anxiety and low mood in children are common, impair everyday functioning and increase the risk of severe mental health disorders in adulthood. Relatively few children with emotional health problems are identified and referred for treatment indicating the need to investigate preventive approaches.
Methods/Desig...
The promise, embraced by governments around the world, is that the knowledge economy will provide knowledge workers with a degree of autonomy and permission to think which enables them to be creative and to attract high incomes. What credence should we give to this promise? The current economic crisis is provoking a reappraisal of both economic and...
This paper is concerned with the the development of a theoretical and methodological approach to the study of the cultures of institutions and the patterns of social interaction within them as they exert a formative effect on the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of learning. It does this through the development of an approach in which a dialectical relation betwee...
Conceptualisations of disability that emphasise the contextual and cultural nature of disability and the embodiment of these within a national system of data collection present a number of challenges especially where this process is devolved to schools. The requirement for measures based on contextual and subjective experiences gives rise to partic...
We draw on the analytic resources of cultural historical activity theory and the work of (Basil) Bernstein and Knorr Cetina to examine evidence from a study of inter-professional practices in children’s services in three English local authorities (local government systems). The study traced the horizontal (e.g. cross service) and vertical (e.g. bet...
The Equality Act 2010 will be implemented in full in 2011, and schools in the UK will have to provide special aids or services for children with disabilities where this provision is considered reasonable. This paper reports on staff perspectives on the use and usefulness of a parental questionnaire on disability from a sample of 49 schools (mainstr...
The point of departure for this chapter is the long-running methodological debate concerning the separability or inseparability of person and context in the analysis of human functioning. The intention is to discuss one means of bringing together the psychology that has developed in the wake of Vygotsky's early twentieth-century writing with the so...
This article will consider the formative effect of boundaries between activities in directing and deflecting the attention of actors who are seeking to develop innovatory practice at these boundaries. Specific attention will be directed to practices of communication at these boundaries and also to the way in which these boundaries shape the practic...
This article describes the development and national trial of a methodology for collecting disability data directly from parents, enabling schools and local authorities to meet their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA; 2005) to promote equality of opportunity for all children. It illustrates the complexities around collecting t...
This article draws on data gathered in a 2 year UK government funded followup study of secondary school children who were permanently excluded from school and who did not return to mainstream settings. It reflects on recent debates concerning different forms of social exclusion and considers what forms of service provision might prevent the multip...
There is a wide consensus that during their year abroad higher education (HE) language students should improve their language skills in contact with native speakers in the host community. Research shows, however, that many students find it difficult, if not impossible, to make meaningful contact to locals, and some consider the lack of it as a pers...
This chapter explores some of the personal motivational implications of the process of moving from one situation to another. In the cultural-historical phase of Vygotsky’s writing, he strove to understand the development of psychological functioning in relation to the situation in which that development was taking place. This view is the point of d...
The Equality Act 2010 further enshrines the duties on organisations set out in the Disability Discrimination Act 2005 to safeguard the rights of vulnerable children. However, disability is a complex phenomenon, which makes the collection of data, and the subsequent identification of children who might be classed as disabled, problematic. This artic...
In order to study the mutual shaping of action and institutional setting there is a need for a method of analysing data which provides a window on the contingent and sequential emergence of new ways of thinking and speaking in specific institutional contexts. This paper addresses this challenge through a consideration of the developments that were...
IntroductionPsychological Tools and MediationDevelopment and DialecticsConcept FormationZone of Proximal DevelopmentBiology in DevelopmentAffect and CognitionReferences
This paper is concerned with the way we understand and investigate the relationship between human functioning and social setting. The central argument draws on the work of Bernstein and Vygotsky. A novel approach to the study of the mutual shaping of human action and institutional settings is developed and an empirical example of its application is...
This article draws on data gathered in a two‐year English government‐funded follow‐up study of secondary school children who were permanently excluded from school and who did not return to mainstream settings. It reflects on recent debates concerning different forms of social exclusion and considers what forms of service provision might prevent the...
In this paper, I discuss a development within the cultural historical tradition in social science that makes a contribution to our understanding of pedagogy and thus to research in education. This departure involves the incorporation of a sociology of pedagogy into the post-Vygotskian formulation of the social formation of mind. In so doing, it see...
Activity theory seeks to analyze development within practical social activities. Activities organize our lives. In activities, humans develop their skills, personalities, and consciousness. Through activities, we also transform our social conditions, resolve contradictions, generate new cultural artifacts, and create new forms of life and the self....
Purpose
– The purpose of this paper is to describe the problem of achieving “organizational justice” for children within integrated children's services. Justice is understood, following Byers and Rhodes discussion of Levinas as respecting the “unique and indivisible” character of a given child.
Design/methodology/approach
– The empirical material...
Shortlisted for the NASEN Special Educational Needs Academic Book Award 2009. Inter-professional collaborations are invaluable relationships which can prevent the social exclusion of children and young people and are now a common feature of welfare policies worldwide. Drawing on a four year study of the skills and understanding required of practiti...