Anne Pirrie | University of the West of Scotland (UWS) (original) (raw)
Papers by Anne Pirrie
Scottish Educational Review
This article explores risk behaviour in adults with a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome (AS) o... more This article explores risk behaviour in adults with a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) during the transition to adulthood, drawing on interviews with twelve individuals and on two focus groups comprising members of other families affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The authors examine the subtle interplay between engagement in a variety of risk behaviours and the health and wellbeing of particular individuals with ASD. Feelings of anger, hopelessness and self-harming were common responses to bullying and pervasive difficulties with social interaction. There appears to be no clear causal relationship between risk behaviours and transition, which is characterised by protracted and complex period of identity formation. The current orthodoxy of service provision emphasises the importance of integration with the local community, irrespective of the challenges this may present to people with ASD. There is scope for further elaboration of t...
Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 2007
In November 2003, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the SCRE Centre... more In November 2003, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the SCRE Centre at the University of Glasgow to evaluate the impact of Section 15 of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000. The evaluation took place between January ...
Oxford Review of Education, 2007
... Peter Mittler, an international authority on special needs education, described inclusion as ... more ... Peter Mittler, an international authority on special needs education, described inclusion as 'a long ... of disabled people in mainstream education through the provision of training, consultancy and resources. ... enshrined as a core value of New Labour's social and educational policy ...
Oxford Review of Education, 2012
Ethics and Education, 2013
This article addresses two main questions 1) what is excellence and 2) should epistemic excellenc... more This article addresses two main questions 1) what is excellence and 2) should epistemic excellence be the main purpose of education? Though references to excellence have become increasingly frequent in UK education policy, these questions are perhaps especially important in Scotland where the curriculum is explicitly for excellence. Following Hirst and Peters, it is hypothesised that if the term 'education' implies possession of a certain breadth of general knowledge and understanding, then the term 'excellence' may imply a deep grasp of a specific body of knowledge. However, after consideration of Dewey's suggestion that being present in the moment is an excellence of childhood, it is concluded that 1) the development of epistemic excellence (having a deep grasp of valuable knowledge) should be regarded as an educational purpose rather than the only educational purpose and 2) pupil engagement with public traditions of knowledge provide necessary but not sufficient conditions for education.
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2009
Locked out: researching destinations and outcomes for excluded pupils You simply go out and shut ... more Locked out: researching destinations and outcomes for excluded pupils You simply go out and shut the door without thinking. And when you look back at what you've done it's too late. If this sounds like the story of a life, okay.
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2011
Background: Fasting induces specific molecular and metabolic adaptions in most organisms. In biom... more Background: Fasting induces specific molecular and metabolic adaptions in most organisms. In biomedical research fasting is used in metabolic studies to synchronize nutritional states of study subjects. Because there is a lack of standardization for this procedure, we need a deeper understanding of the dynamics and the molecular mechanisms in fasting. Results: We investigated the dynamic changes of liver gene expression and serum parameters of mice at several time points during a 48 hour fasting experiment and then focused on the global gene expression changes in epididymal white adipose tissue (WAT) as well as on pathways common to WAT, liver, and skeletal muscle. This approach produced several intriguing insights: (i) rather than a sequential activation of biochemical pathways in fasted liver, as current knowledge dictates, our data indicates a concerted parallel response; (ii) this first characterization of the transcriptome signature of WAT of fasted mice reveals a remarkable activation of components of the transcription apparatus; (iii) most importantly, our bioinformatic analyses indicate p53 as central node in the regulation of fasting in major metabolic tissues; and (iv) forced expression of Ddit4, a fasting-regulated p53 target gene, is sufficient to augment lipolysis in cultured adipocytes. Conclusions: In summary, this combination of focused and global profiling approaches provides a comprehensive molecular characterization of the processes operating during fasting in mice and suggests a role for p53, and its downstream target Ddit4, as novel components in the transcriptional response to food deprivation.
Educational Review, 2013
In this paper we present new data from interviews with parents of pupils permanently excluded fro... more In this paper we present new data from interviews with parents of pupils permanently excluded from alternative provision in England, and related service providers. We report the social contexts of the families, their experience of 'choice', and how service providers talk about them. Our findings support those from earlier studies in relation to the disadvantage experienced by many parents. As predicted, the parents experienced choice as very limited. Some parents, due to a lack of personal, social or economic resources, felt unable to engage with the parental choice agenda beyond vetoing options. Our data suggests that service providers talk about parents as problems rather than as equal partners. How parents are viewed is shaped both by their level of compliance and their access to resources. We conclude by considering the potential of the 'parental choice' discourse to provide a more positive re-framing of parents.
British Educational Research Journal, 2010
This relates to a seminar on the 'epistemological basis of educational research findings' under t... more This relates to a seminar on the 'epistemological basis of educational research findings' under the auspices of the ESRC's Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) http://www.tlrp.org/themes/seminar/bridges.html 2 William Wordsworth 'The world is too much with us' (1807).
British Educational Research Journal, 2011
He got a brick and tore a large piece of wood from the fence to use as a weapon. It was horrific,... more He got a brick and tore a large piece of wood from the fence to use as a weapon. It was horrific, quite unprecedented in the life of the school.
Critical Studies in Education, 2017
This article explores the conception of authority relations in the classroom that are implicit in... more This article explores the conception of authority relations in the classroom that are implicit in some examples of related policy documentation in Scotland and England. We argue that the importance of the constitutive role of the micro-dynamics of faceto-face interaction in classroom settings is neglected in documentation of this type. We explore this claim with reference to examples of policy in two jurisdictions of the UK, namely The Donaldson Review and The Standards for Registration in Scotland; and policy-related guidance from England on improving discipline in schools and pupils' behaviour. We also consider how authority relations are conceptualised in a recent article that has made a significant contribution to the literature in the field (Macleod et al, 2012). Finally, we present a theoretical account that counterbalances prevailing approaches to authority relations in the classroom. We suggest that authority is continuously negotiated, challenged, accepted, defined, and ultimately constituted in and through the dynamics of interaction between and amongst pupils (and between pupils and teachers).
Ethics and Education, 2012
Taking flight: Trust, ethics, and the comfort of strangers-lessons from research on emotional and... more Taking flight: Trust, ethics, and the comfort of strangers-lessons from research on emotional and behavioural difficulties and exclusion from school This article explores the themes of trust and ethical conduct in social research, with particular attention to the trust that can develop between the members of a research team as well as between researchers and those whom they research. The authors draw upon a three-year empirical study of destinations and outcomes for young people excluded from alternative educational provision. They also make reference to a contemporary exposition of Aristotle's writing on friendship in order to explore two sets of relevant distinctions that have a bearing upon our understanding of relationships that emerge in the context of social research projects. These distinctions are between impartiality and selectivity on the one hand, and between universality and particularity on the other. The authors attempt to demonstrate that these distinctions have a bearing upon the development of trust, and upon the conduct of ethical research, arguing that the latter is not synonymous with compliance to ethical guidelines.
International Review of Qualitative Research
This article explores the ecology of contemporary higher education by foregrounding the ethical r... more This article explores the ecology of contemporary higher education by foregrounding the ethical relation between its authors. The article expresses their commitment to throwing off familiar academic conventions in order to promote human flourishing in a sector that has been colonized by new managerialism and the associated mechanisms of “performance management,” surveillance, and exclusion. The authors write into the emblems of the naajavaarsuk (the ivory gull) and isumataq (the Inuit storyteller). They explore collaborative writing as an ethical, relational practice whilst exposing the lived problematics that have become the “new normal” in the contemporary academy, for instance, the fetishization of “student satisfaction.” The latter has gained traction in the UK in recent years, and in extreme cases can call forth acts of ethical violence that induce deep and long-lasting effects. Their account is visceral rather than abstract, rooted in lived experience and in theory. The author...
Journal of International Students
This article explores reflection and reflective thinking, drawing upon qualitative research on in... more This article explores reflection and reflective thinking, drawing upon qualitative research on international students’ perceptions of developing their employability while studying in the UK. It addresses a gap in the literature by making a connection between internationalization and employability, concepts that are mainly framed as separate discursive realms. The literature on internationalization is focused around international student recruitment and the benefits to the host institution; the employability discourse is oriented towards national policies on the development of human capital through home students in the domestic market. The reflective thinking demonstrated by the international students illustrates the challenges they faced in seeking opportunities to enhance their employability within and outside the university; and to (re)assess learning opportunities that are integrated with work experience. The findings suggest that there is scope for embedding employment developme...
Journal of Philosophy of Education
This article offers a critique of the manner in which doctoral supervision is conceptualised in a... more This article offers a critique of the manner in which doctoral supervision is conceptualised in a higher education system dominated by the market order. The authors consider the process of research supervision as an experience held in common, as a way of discovering the world together rather than as the fulfilment of discrete roles within a clearly defined timeframe. They propose an alternative ontology of research supervision, as a process of 'unselfing' informed by the enactment of agape (love) rather than as something that is characterised by conformity to a regulatory framework and informed by the dictates of institutionalised systems of monitoring and surveillance. This approach implies rejection of the relentless focus on choice and action that is characteristic of institutionalised higher education. The authors claim greater scope for consideration of the influence of the more elusive aspects of being human in the process of research supervision. This reappraisal of research supervision calls into question the pre-eminence of the Newtonian order of time as something that flows uniformly, independently of things and their relationships and calls for renewed emphasis on time as lived experience. The authors draw on a musical analogy, namely the differences between classical music and jazz, in order to explore these themes in relation to research supervision.
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2015
This paper reports the early stages of a 3-year evaluation of the Early Intervention Programme in... more This paper reports the early stages of a 3-year evaluation of the Early Intervention Programme in Scotland. The Early Intervention Programme is a high-profile government initiative which receives major government funding (60 million pounds sterling over 5 years) and is designed to improve standards of literacy and numeracy in the first 2 years of primary school. The paper presents some early findings. Firstly, it illustrates the range of early intervention schemes, and explores the extent to which these represent different understanding of the overall purpose of the programme. Secondly, the paper draws upon survey data gathered on stakeholders' perceptions of the impact of the Early Intervention Programme as it develops. The stakeholders include headteachers, class teachers, learning support teachers and classroom assistants, as well as educational psychologists and local authority personnel who have played a significant role in the design and/or implementation of schemes in the...
Scottish Educational Review
This article explores risk behaviour in adults with a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome (AS) o... more This article explores risk behaviour in adults with a diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome (AS) or high-functioning autism (HFA) during the transition to adulthood, drawing on interviews with twelve individuals and on two focus groups comprising members of other families affected by autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The authors examine the subtle interplay between engagement in a variety of risk behaviours and the health and wellbeing of particular individuals with ASD. Feelings of anger, hopelessness and self-harming were common responses to bullying and pervasive difficulties with social interaction. There appears to be no clear causal relationship between risk behaviours and transition, which is characterised by protracted and complex period of identity formation. The current orthodoxy of service provision emphasises the importance of integration with the local community, irrespective of the challenges this may present to people with ASD. There is scope for further elaboration of t...
Journal of Research in Special Educational Needs, 2007
In November 2003, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the SCRE Centre... more In November 2003, the Scottish Executive Education Department (SEED) commissioned the SCRE Centre at the University of Glasgow to evaluate the impact of Section 15 of the Standards in Scotland's Schools etc Act 2000. The evaluation took place between January ...
Oxford Review of Education, 2007
... Peter Mittler, an international authority on special needs education, described inclusion as ... more ... Peter Mittler, an international authority on special needs education, described inclusion as 'a long ... of disabled people in mainstream education through the provision of training, consultancy and resources. ... enshrined as a core value of New Labour's social and educational policy ...
Oxford Review of Education, 2012
Ethics and Education, 2013
This article addresses two main questions 1) what is excellence and 2) should epistemic excellenc... more This article addresses two main questions 1) what is excellence and 2) should epistemic excellence be the main purpose of education? Though references to excellence have become increasingly frequent in UK education policy, these questions are perhaps especially important in Scotland where the curriculum is explicitly for excellence. Following Hirst and Peters, it is hypothesised that if the term 'education' implies possession of a certain breadth of general knowledge and understanding, then the term 'excellence' may imply a deep grasp of a specific body of knowledge. However, after consideration of Dewey's suggestion that being present in the moment is an excellence of childhood, it is concluded that 1) the development of epistemic excellence (having a deep grasp of valuable knowledge) should be regarded as an educational purpose rather than the only educational purpose and 2) pupil engagement with public traditions of knowledge provide necessary but not sufficient conditions for education.
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2009
Locked out: researching destinations and outcomes for excluded pupils You simply go out and shut ... more Locked out: researching destinations and outcomes for excluded pupils You simply go out and shut the door without thinking. And when you look back at what you've done it's too late. If this sounds like the story of a life, okay.
Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 2011
Background: Fasting induces specific molecular and metabolic adaptions in most organisms. In biom... more Background: Fasting induces specific molecular and metabolic adaptions in most organisms. In biomedical research fasting is used in metabolic studies to synchronize nutritional states of study subjects. Because there is a lack of standardization for this procedure, we need a deeper understanding of the dynamics and the molecular mechanisms in fasting. Results: We investigated the dynamic changes of liver gene expression and serum parameters of mice at several time points during a 48 hour fasting experiment and then focused on the global gene expression changes in epididymal white adipose tissue (WAT) as well as on pathways common to WAT, liver, and skeletal muscle. This approach produced several intriguing insights: (i) rather than a sequential activation of biochemical pathways in fasted liver, as current knowledge dictates, our data indicates a concerted parallel response; (ii) this first characterization of the transcriptome signature of WAT of fasted mice reveals a remarkable activation of components of the transcription apparatus; (iii) most importantly, our bioinformatic analyses indicate p53 as central node in the regulation of fasting in major metabolic tissues; and (iv) forced expression of Ddit4, a fasting-regulated p53 target gene, is sufficient to augment lipolysis in cultured adipocytes. Conclusions: In summary, this combination of focused and global profiling approaches provides a comprehensive molecular characterization of the processes operating during fasting in mice and suggests a role for p53, and its downstream target Ddit4, as novel components in the transcriptional response to food deprivation.
Educational Review, 2013
In this paper we present new data from interviews with parents of pupils permanently excluded fro... more In this paper we present new data from interviews with parents of pupils permanently excluded from alternative provision in England, and related service providers. We report the social contexts of the families, their experience of 'choice', and how service providers talk about them. Our findings support those from earlier studies in relation to the disadvantage experienced by many parents. As predicted, the parents experienced choice as very limited. Some parents, due to a lack of personal, social or economic resources, felt unable to engage with the parental choice agenda beyond vetoing options. Our data suggests that service providers talk about parents as problems rather than as equal partners. How parents are viewed is shaped both by their level of compliance and their access to resources. We conclude by considering the potential of the 'parental choice' discourse to provide a more positive re-framing of parents.
British Educational Research Journal, 2010
This relates to a seminar on the 'epistemological basis of educational research findings' under t... more This relates to a seminar on the 'epistemological basis of educational research findings' under the auspices of the ESRC's Teaching and Learning Research Programme (TLRP) http://www.tlrp.org/themes/seminar/bridges.html 2 William Wordsworth 'The world is too much with us' (1807).
British Educational Research Journal, 2011
He got a brick and tore a large piece of wood from the fence to use as a weapon. It was horrific,... more He got a brick and tore a large piece of wood from the fence to use as a weapon. It was horrific, quite unprecedented in the life of the school.
Critical Studies in Education, 2017
This article explores the conception of authority relations in the classroom that are implicit in... more This article explores the conception of authority relations in the classroom that are implicit in some examples of related policy documentation in Scotland and England. We argue that the importance of the constitutive role of the micro-dynamics of faceto-face interaction in classroom settings is neglected in documentation of this type. We explore this claim with reference to examples of policy in two jurisdictions of the UK, namely The Donaldson Review and The Standards for Registration in Scotland; and policy-related guidance from England on improving discipline in schools and pupils' behaviour. We also consider how authority relations are conceptualised in a recent article that has made a significant contribution to the literature in the field (Macleod et al, 2012). Finally, we present a theoretical account that counterbalances prevailing approaches to authority relations in the classroom. We suggest that authority is continuously negotiated, challenged, accepted, defined, and ultimately constituted in and through the dynamics of interaction between and amongst pupils (and between pupils and teachers).
Ethics and Education, 2012
Taking flight: Trust, ethics, and the comfort of strangers-lessons from research on emotional and... more Taking flight: Trust, ethics, and the comfort of strangers-lessons from research on emotional and behavioural difficulties and exclusion from school This article explores the themes of trust and ethical conduct in social research, with particular attention to the trust that can develop between the members of a research team as well as between researchers and those whom they research. The authors draw upon a three-year empirical study of destinations and outcomes for young people excluded from alternative educational provision. They also make reference to a contemporary exposition of Aristotle's writing on friendship in order to explore two sets of relevant distinctions that have a bearing upon our understanding of relationships that emerge in the context of social research projects. These distinctions are between impartiality and selectivity on the one hand, and between universality and particularity on the other. The authors attempt to demonstrate that these distinctions have a bearing upon the development of trust, and upon the conduct of ethical research, arguing that the latter is not synonymous with compliance to ethical guidelines.
International Review of Qualitative Research
This article explores the ecology of contemporary higher education by foregrounding the ethical r... more This article explores the ecology of contemporary higher education by foregrounding the ethical relation between its authors. The article expresses their commitment to throwing off familiar academic conventions in order to promote human flourishing in a sector that has been colonized by new managerialism and the associated mechanisms of “performance management,” surveillance, and exclusion. The authors write into the emblems of the naajavaarsuk (the ivory gull) and isumataq (the Inuit storyteller). They explore collaborative writing as an ethical, relational practice whilst exposing the lived problematics that have become the “new normal” in the contemporary academy, for instance, the fetishization of “student satisfaction.” The latter has gained traction in the UK in recent years, and in extreme cases can call forth acts of ethical violence that induce deep and long-lasting effects. Their account is visceral rather than abstract, rooted in lived experience and in theory. The author...
Journal of International Students
This article explores reflection and reflective thinking, drawing upon qualitative research on in... more This article explores reflection and reflective thinking, drawing upon qualitative research on international students’ perceptions of developing their employability while studying in the UK. It addresses a gap in the literature by making a connection between internationalization and employability, concepts that are mainly framed as separate discursive realms. The literature on internationalization is focused around international student recruitment and the benefits to the host institution; the employability discourse is oriented towards national policies on the development of human capital through home students in the domestic market. The reflective thinking demonstrated by the international students illustrates the challenges they faced in seeking opportunities to enhance their employability within and outside the university; and to (re)assess learning opportunities that are integrated with work experience. The findings suggest that there is scope for embedding employment developme...
Journal of Philosophy of Education
This article offers a critique of the manner in which doctoral supervision is conceptualised in a... more This article offers a critique of the manner in which doctoral supervision is conceptualised in a higher education system dominated by the market order. The authors consider the process of research supervision as an experience held in common, as a way of discovering the world together rather than as the fulfilment of discrete roles within a clearly defined timeframe. They propose an alternative ontology of research supervision, as a process of 'unselfing' informed by the enactment of agape (love) rather than as something that is characterised by conformity to a regulatory framework and informed by the dictates of institutionalised systems of monitoring and surveillance. This approach implies rejection of the relentless focus on choice and action that is characteristic of institutionalised higher education. The authors claim greater scope for consideration of the influence of the more elusive aspects of being human in the process of research supervision. This reappraisal of research supervision calls into question the pre-eminence of the Newtonian order of time as something that flows uniformly, independently of things and their relationships and calls for renewed emphasis on time as lived experience. The authors draw on a musical analogy, namely the differences between classical music and jazz, in order to explore these themes in relation to research supervision.
Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2015
This paper reports the early stages of a 3-year evaluation of the Early Intervention Programme in... more This paper reports the early stages of a 3-year evaluation of the Early Intervention Programme in Scotland. The Early Intervention Programme is a high-profile government initiative which receives major government funding (60 million pounds sterling over 5 years) and is designed to improve standards of literacy and numeracy in the first 2 years of primary school. The paper presents some early findings. Firstly, it illustrates the range of early intervention schemes, and explores the extent to which these represent different understanding of the overall purpose of the programme. Secondly, the paper draws upon survey data gathered on stakeholders' perceptions of the impact of the Early Intervention Programme as it develops. The stakeholders include headteachers, class teachers, learning support teachers and classroom assistants, as well as educational psychologists and local authority personnel who have played a significant role in the design and/or implementation of schemes in the...