Jessica Bowyer
Discipline: Graduate School of Education
Project Summary
Thesis title: Closing the attainment gap in rural and coastal areas: a multi-level exploration of poverty, education and rurality
There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that the attainment gap at GCSE is larger in rural and/or coastal areas than in urban areas. My PhD thesis employs a transformative mixed methods model in order to explore this in more depth, combining macro-level analysis with participatory methods. My research is divided into three strands:
- secondary analysis of Next Steps data;
- analysis of rural and coastal schools' strategies for raising attainment and how these are influenced by the local geographic and economic context;
- a participatory photography project with young people living in rural and coastal areas.
Supervisory Team
Dr Alexandra Allan and Dr James Hall
Wider Research Interests
Class and inequality, education policy.
