Institut­skolloquium: Prof. Anna Mountfard-Zimdars (University of Exeter, UK)

“ Research frontiers and improving practices and equity: some experiences from
England’s first academic / practitioner co-directed Centre for Social Mobility ”
„Die Kombination von Forschungsneuland und praxisrelevanter Forschung zum Thema
Chancengleichheit: Erfahrungen aus Englands erstem akadamisch-praktizierendem Forschungszentrum zum Thema Social Mobility“
(Prof. Anna Mountford-Zimdars, University of Exeter)

This talk will be delivered in English but contributions to the discussion are invited in both
German or English.

The Centre for Social Mobility at the University of Exeter is the first UK Centre to be jointly
directed by a ‘widening participation’ practitioner specialising in activities to increase access to higher education and an academic specialising in equality research in higher education.
The talk will describe how this provides a fruitful space for conceptualising, undertaking, and communicating research. I will present ‘equalities’ frontiers the Centre is researching – namely contextual admissions, elective home-education, access to fertility treatment, and rural and coastal disadvantage. The centre's current and recent theoretical work focuses on ‘possible selves’, ‘helicopter mobility’ and ‘gender equality in fiction – the fiction of gender equality?’. I will also introduce some of our academic-practice synergy projects which include co-developing a tool for enhancing evaluation practices with the regulator for English higher education (OfS) and institutional research. Concluding thoughts come from our rapid response work on the impact of forced school closures.

Zoom-Link im Falle eines hybriden bzw. Online-Formates: https://t1p.de/Institutskolloquium2021IfSTUD