Research Fellows and Associates

 

The Educational Disadvantage Centre currently has the following Research Fellows and Associates attached to it:

Research Fellows:

Jane Carrigan is a PhD Research Fellow with the Educational Disadvantage Centre (EDC) in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra. She is currently working on the European wide project, Lifelong Learning and the Contribution of the Education System/ LLL 2010 and is the Irish National Coordinator of Sub-Project 3 which surveyed 1,000 adults in education in Ireland. Her research interests include educational disadvantage, health inequalities, penal reform and the effect of state policies on the lives of individuals. Her doctorate concentrates on the impact of education on the lives of students who are currently imprisoned in Ireland and are attending classes within the prison. Jane is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin (BA, MSc in Applied Social Research) and Dublin City University (MA in Communications & Cultural Studies).  In Trinity she gained a distinction for her MSc thesis which was entitled Ex-prisoners’ perspectives on drugs in Irish prisons: exploring their experiences of imprisonment, supply control and harm reduction methods.

jane.carrigan@spd.dcu.ie

Catherine Dooley received her Undergraduate degree in Social Science and her Masters in European Studies from University College Dublin. Catherine is currently a PhD Research Fellow in the Educational Disadvantage Centre working with Dr. Paul Downes, Dr. Catherine Maunsell and Ms. Jane Carrigan on the European wide project, Lifelong Learning and the Contribution of the Education System/ LLL 2010 - Catherine is the Irish National Coordinator of Sub-Projects 4 and 5. Catherine’s research interests are social policy, Community Development and the European Union and her PhD proposal is about parents taking part in second chance education in order to develop leadership skills in the context of lifelong learning and the effect that they believe this has had on their children's motivation to learn in primary school.

Senior Research Associates:

Dr Liz McLoughlin is a psychology lecturer in the School of Nursing & Human Sciences, DCU. Her doctoral thesis ‘The Cognitive Processes of Young Offenders’ which was undertaken in Trinity College Dublin, where Liz was the Usher Fellow from 1996-1999, was completed in 1999. For five years she was the Director of the first community-based day assessment service in Ireland for young people at risk and also worked with the HSE for a short period before returning to academia. She is currently the Programme chair of the DCU psychology programme and her research interests include Youthful Offending and Associated Vulnerability and Protective Factors, Fragmentation of Care – Impact on the Child and Family, Psychological determinants of a strengths based approach with challenging behaviours, Parental Mental Health and the Impact on the Child and Positive Psychology.

Dr Katherine E Zappone is an educator and independent researcher.  She is Project Leader of the Childhood Development Initiative in Tallaght West, and has directed and contributed to its research publications including: ‘How Are our Kids? Children and Families in Tallaght West’ (2005), ‘Experiencing Childhood Citizenship,’ (2005) and ‘A Place for Children. Tallaght West’ (2006). She lectured for a decade in Trinity College Dublin in ethics, human rights and education, and has lectured in Canada, Australia, Europe, the USA and throughout Ireland. Widely published in feminism, ethics, equality issues and education, she conducts research, consults and teaches. Her publications include:  ‘Achieving Equality in Children’s Education’ and ‘Messages from the Children’ (Dublin: Educational Disadvantage Centre, St Patrick’s College, 2002; Charting the Equality Agenda: A Coherent Framework for Equality Strategies in Ireland North and South (Equality Authority and Equality Commission, 2001); and Re-Thinking Identity: The Challenge of Diversity (Equality Authority and Human Rights Commission, 2003). She is Co-founder of An Cosán, a large community-based organization in West Tallaght, Dublin committed to eradicating poverty through education.     She is also a member of the Irish Human Rights Commission.

Research Associates:

Anne Marie Byrne is a graduate of St. Patrick's College where she gained an Honours BA in English and Religious Studies in 2001. Before her current return to full-time PhD research, she was tutor in the English Department of St. Patrick's College for several years. As part of her MPhil thesis (Trinity College, Dublin, 2002) which looked at the use of drama in prisons, Anne Marie completed a research project over three months in 2002 in Mountjoy Prison where she became aware of the low educational achievements and low self-esteem of many of the prisoners, prompting her to question the provision and experience of education for juveniles who, as a result of multiple factors, had involvement in criminal activity. She is currently conducting research as part of her Doctoral thesis into the education for juvenile offenders, examining the process and experience in an Irish Detention School. Anne Marie is also the Senior Tutor within the college.

annemarie.byrne@spd.dcu.ie

Imelda Byrne is a Research Associate with the Educational Disadvantage Centre. She has worked on Subproject 3 of the European Lifelong Learning project LLL2010.  Imelda’s specific research interests are adult education, particularly adults returning to education and she currently works as a tutor in Adult Education and has taught a variety of programmes and levels.  She has recently been involved in a programme for single mothers in D.A.W.N. (Drogheda Area Women's Network), who wish to learn new skills in order to return to work or further education.  As a mature student, she herself returned to education, received a certificate in Social Studies, and graduated from St. Patrick’s College with a BA and MA in Human Development.  She tutors part-time in a range of disciplines for the Human Development Department and the Education Department and has acted as assistant lecturer on the BA Philosophical module.

Jo-Hanna Ivers is a Research Associate with the Educational Disadvantage Centre (EDC). She completed her MA with the centre in 2008.  Her thesis A Phenomenological reinterpretation of Horner's ‘Fear of Success’ in terms of social class (abstract here) examined the relevance of the psychological concept of fear of success within a socio-economically disadvantaged context. She is currently a researcher in the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Trinity Centre for Health Sciences, Trinity College, Dublin. Her research interests include Addiction, Adolescent Addiction & Mental Health, Educational Disadvantage and Inequality. She has worked as a Rehabilitation Integration Worker in the Addiction Services, Rehabilitation Team, Health Service Executive and in a community based rehabilitation programme for eight years. In addition to her current position as a researcher Jo-Hanna is also a voluntary Cognitive Behavioural Therapist in the Adolescent Addiction Services, Health Service Executive.

Dr. Sylwia Kazmierczak-Murray worked as a full-time researcher with the Educational Disadvantage Centre from 2005 to 2007 and has been tutoring M. Ed students, in the areas of language and literacy since 2006. She currently works with the National Educational Welfare Board, as coordinator of the School Completion Programme for the Cabra area, as well as working privately as a part-time speech and language therapist. She has published articles for speech/language therapists and teachers on enhancing classroom listening and phonemic awareness facilitation in infant classrooms. Her inter-disciplinary doctorate thesis entitled A systems level focus on the efficacy of classroom sound field amplification on the language development of children in seven DEIS urban schools in Ireland is the first-large scale study on the classroom sound field amplification systems in mainstream schools in Ireland and the first study internationally that views the efficacy of this intervention in a systems theory framework. With her recently awarded PhD in Education, her membership of the Irish Association of Speech and Language Therapists and her experience of working in the NEWB, Sylwia's interest is in the integration of children's services to work with those most at risk and system level approaches to addressing educational and therapeutic needs of children in DEIS schools.

Simone Murray is a freelance researcher for the Irish National Programmes: schools, community, social inclusion, access and Life Long Learning programmes at the Irish Museum of Modern Art. She holds a BA and MA in Irish and European social and cultural history from Trinity College, Dublin. She has an interdisciplinary focus to her background connecting cultural history, schools and community museum arts education and social policy research. She has worked as an arts education facilitator, lecturer, researcher and evaluator on teachers' in-service and Comenius courses and arts education and drug prevention evaluations. Her research interests include schools and community arts; social inclusion and museum education; tackling education disadvantage with cross-curricular integration multi-media projects in arts, heritage and sustainability; promoting applied skills; confidence building and creative self expression. She is currently designer and Co-ordinator of  the ‘W.H.A.S.P’ multi-media action research project 2006-8: World Heritage - Art - Science Project with Dublin Zoo education department, Phoenix Park Heritage Park and the Royal Hospital Kilmainham MMA Heritage centre.

simone.murray@spd.dcu.ie

Cathríona Ryan is a researcher with the Educational Disadvantage Centre (EDC) in St. Patrick’s College, Drumcondra.  A graduate of the college with honours in Human Development and Music, her MA thesis in education with the EDC, in conjunction with Ballyfermot Local Drugs Task Force, is examining the experiences of children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and their families in Ballyfermot.

 

 

 

Last Updated: Monday March 05 2012