Bob Lingard
Bob Lingard is currently a Professorial Research Fellow in the School of Education at The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia and has been in this position since June, 2008. From 2004 until 2006 he was a Research Professor in the School of Education at the University of Sheffield in England and from 2006 until early 2008 he held the Andrew Bell Chair of Education at the University of Edinburgh. Prior to moving to the UK, Bob had been Professor and Head of School at The University of Queensland and also Chair of the Queensland Studies Authority, a government statutory authority overseeing all curriculum and assessment in Queensland schools. Bob has been President of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) and was a long time Executive member of that Association. In 2010 he will deliver the prestigious Radford Lecture at AARE's annual conference. In 2006 Bob gave a Keynote Address at the annual BERA conference and was nominated by BERA to membership of the Academy of Social Sciences. Bob has also been a long term editor of the Taylor & Francis journal, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education. Bob is also Editor of a new Routledge (New York) book series with Greg Dimitriadis, Key Ideas in Education.
Bob moved into academia in 1976, taking a position in sociology of education at what is now the University of Southern Queensland (1976-1979), followed by a position also in sociology of education at what is now Queensland University of Technology (1979-1988). It was at QUT that Bob teamed up with colleagues Sandra Taylor, Miriam Henry and John Knight, with whom he published a number of books, including Understanding Schooling (Routledge, 1988). He also wrote Educational Policy and the Politics of Change (Routledge, 1997) with Sandra and Miriam, along with Fazal Rizvi, as well as The OECD, Globalisation and Education Policy (Pergamon, 2001). In 1989 Bob moved to the University of Queensland and in 1993 edited the collection with Paige Porter and John Knight, Schooling Reform in Hard Times (Falmer Press). In 1999 Bob published Men Engaging Feminisms (Open University Press) with Peter Douglas - one of the first studies of feminism, masculinity and schooling.
Bob was promoted a personal chair in education at The University of Queensland in 2001. Since 2002 Bob has published seven further books, including with Jenny Ozga (2007) The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics and with Fazal Rizvi (2010) Globalizing Education Policy (Routledge). Bob is currently working on two further Routledge books: an edited collection with Pat Thomson and Terry Wrigley entitled, Changing Schools: Making a world of a difference, due in 2010, and a book with Shaun Rawolle due at Routledge in November, 2010, entitled Bourdieu and the Field of Education Policy.
See previously featured authors
Changing Schools
Alternative approaches to make a world of difference
January 2011 | Paperback: 978-0-415-55860-0 (Routledge)
Globalizing Education Policy
Rizvi and Lingard's account of the global politics of education is thoughtful, complex and compelling. It is the first really comprehensive discussion and analysis of…
read moreAugust 2009 | Paperback: 978-0-415-41627-6 (Routledge)
The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics
This Reader brings together selected papers from leading scholars to address the most significant recent development in educational policy and politics: the impact of globalisation.…
read more2006 | Paperback: 978-0-415-34574-3 (Routledge)
more information about The RoutledgeFalmer Reader in Education Policy and Politics
Educational Policy and the Politics of Change
Governments around the world are trying to come to terms with new technologies, new social movements and a changing global economy. As a result, educational… read more1997 | Paperback: 978-0-415-11871-2 (Routledge)
more information about Educational Policy and the Politics of Change
Understanding Schooling
An Introductory Sociology of Australian Education
This analysis of Australian schooling relates international sociological research to the actual experiences of teachers in the classroom, and sets those experiences in the wider… read more1990 | Paperback: 978-0-415-00895-2 (Routledge)
During his more than thirty years in academic work Bob Lingard's research has been underpinned by a concern for social justice. Across his career, he has worked collaboratively with colleagues and has been lucky to have had the privilege of learning from so many of them, confirming his conviction that collective work adds something to all research projects. Bob has also sought to work with policy makers and practitioners. He recognises that educational research is about the application of social science theory and methodologies to education, but also believes that educational research ought to contribute to progressive educational changes.
Bob's research has been located in the sociology of education and focused on issues of education policy. His three areas of educational research broadly conceived have been gender and schooling, school reform and education policy. Bob has co-authored and co-edited 15 books and more than 120 refereed journal articles and book chapters.
Bob's research and publications on gender and education have been largely concerned with matters of gender policy, masculinities and schooling and the ‘boy turn' within contemporary gender theory and policy. With Brigid Limerick (1995) he edited a book on gender and educational management; with Peter Douglas (1999) he co-authored Men Engaging Feminisms, which took a pro-feminist stance towards the calls for a boy focus in education policy and practice. From 2002-2003 he co-directed a large Australian government funded research project with Wayne Martino and Martin Mills, entitled Addressing the Educational Needs of Boys (2005). He was also actively involved politically in seeking to limit the impact of backlash politics in the boy turn. In 2009, with Wayne and Martin he co-authored the book, Educating Boys: beyond structural reform (Palgrave). This book drew from a range of journal articles in Gender and Education, Oxford Review of Education and British Journal of Sociology of Education, which they had written and published together from various research projects. Bob was for a short time as well a member of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Gender Equity in Queensland.
School reform, particularly in relation to social justice concerns and disadvantaged schools has been a long term research and publication interest of Bob's. He was for a time a member of the management committee of the Disadvantaged Schools Program in Queensland and worked regularly with schools and policy makers in this domain in New South Wales. From 1998 until 2002, Bob co-directed a very large ($1.3 million) Queensland government funded research project on school reform, entitled, the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study. This study developed the influential concept of ‘productive pedagogies'. This concept informed subsequent reforms in Queensland schooling and elsewhere. Two books resulted from this project and a large number of journal papers, many co-written with Martin Mills, Debra Hayes and Pam Christie. The two books Leading Learning (Open University Press, 2003) and Teachers and Schooling Making a Difference (2006, Allen & Unwin) have been widely referenced in the school reform and pedagogies literatures, as well as being of interest to policy makers and practitioners. In 2008, along with UK colleagues Jon Nixon and Stewart Ranson, Bob edited the Continuum book, Transforming Learning in Schools and Community. This book was concerned with the opportunities opened up by globalisation, new technologies, and new policy frames for more effective school reform and practices. The opening essay, ‘Remaking Education for a Globalized World: Policy and Pedagogic Possibilities' traversed this range of issues. The Routledge edited collection with Pat Thomson and Terry Wrigley, which Bob is currently working, on seeks to document alternative yet effective modes of school reform.
Bob's policy work has been derived from a range of research projects funded by the Australian Research Council, the EU and the Economic and Social Research Council. This work gradually moved from a national focus to considerations of the impact of globalization on education policy processes and content. The edited collection Schooling Reform in Hard Times (1993) looked at educational restructuring during the 1990s with a largely Australian focus. The 1997 edited collection, A National Approach to Schooling in Australia? also looked at the moves towards national policy frameworks in education in Australia, where Constitutionally schooling remains the responsibility of the states within Australian federalism. Education Policy and the Politics of Change (Routledge, 1997) provided an approach to understanding and analysing education policy, but took account of globalization as well as the nation-state. The Reader co-edited with Jenny Ozga, then a colleague at the University of Edinburgh, brought together a range of significant papers about education policy, but all contextualised within analyses of neo-liberal globalisation. Bob’s most recent policy book, co-authored with long term friend and colleague, Fazal Rizvi from the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign), takes as its point of departure the rescaling of political authority associated with globalization and its significance for understanding and analysing education policy. The book Bob is currently working on with Shaun Rawolle takes a more theoretical approach to education policy, drawing and focusing on the work of the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu.
