Professor Stephen Ball

  • Qualifications and position:
    • PhD, FRSA, AcSS, FBA
    • Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education
  • Faculty:
  • Department:
  • Centre:
  • Summary:
    • My main areas of interest are in education policy analysis and the relationships between education and education policy and social class. I bring to bear on these issues the tools and concepts of "policy sociology" and in particular the methods of Michael Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. I am interested in working with research students who take up problems and theoretical positions in these areas. In 2008, I was involved in launching the BERA Social Theory and Education SIG.
  • Teaching:
  • Research Projects:
    • I am currently involved in 3 ESRC-funded projects, they are focused on: the relationships between philanthropy and education policy (with Carolina Junemann); policy enactments in secondary schools (with Meg Maguire KCL and Annette Braun); and the educational strategies of the black middle class (with Carol Vincent, David Gillborn and Nicola Rollock). I am also working on an international study of philanthropy and education policy with Antonio Olmedo of University of Granada.
  • Professional Activities:
    • Chair Committee of Professors (2008-11); Head of Sociology Section (EFPS); Editor of the Journal of Education Policy; Research Officer British Academy Section S4; Fellow of the British Academy; Member of Academy of Social Sciences; FRSA
  • Conferences/presentations:
    • • Leadership, opportunities/commitments and the reform of the public sector: a new moral economy for education? BELMAS Seminar, University of Manchester, June 2010.
      • Social Class, education policy and the politics of advantage: re-visiting Education and the Working Class. Conference to celebrate the life and work of Denis Marsden, University of Essex, July 2010.
      • Infrastructures, consolidations, interests and careers: towards a post-state education landscape in England. BERA Social Justice SIG conference, July 2010.
  • Personal Country Knowledge:
    • Argentina; India; Spain
  • Languages Spoken:
    • Spanish (basic)
  • Research Students:
    • My current research students include:
      Pablo del Monte: Educational futures in the 'villas' of Buenos Aires
      Paula Mena: Struggles over the meaning of public education in Chile
      Angela Oria: Genealogy of public education in Argentina
      Claudine Rausch: Dividing mechanisms in primary classrooms
      Chung-yin Tseng: Discourses of teacher professionalism
      Diego Santori: Comparative study of higher education and social mobility in Argentina and Chile
      Eleni Stamou: Theoretical analysis of youth transitions
Professor Stephen Ball

Contact details

Contact details

Publications

  • Braun, A., Vincent, C., Ball, S. (2010) 'Working-class fathers and childcare: the economic and family contexts of fathering in the UK', Community, Work & Family 1-19.
  • Maguire, M., Ball, S., Braun, A. (2010) 'Behaviour, classroom management and student 'control': enacting policy in the English secondary school', International Studies in Sociology of Education 20 (2), 153-170.
  • Vincent, C., Ball, S., Braun, A. (2010) 'Local links, local knowledge: choosing care settings and schools', British Educational Research Journal 36 (2), 279-298.
  • Vincent, C., Ball, S., Braun, A. (2010) 'Between the estate and the state: struggling to be a 'good' mother', British Journal of Sociology of Education 31 (2), 123-138.
  • Ball, S. (2010) 'New Class Inequalities in Education: why education policy maybe looking in the wrong place! Education Policy, Civil Society and Social Class', International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 30 (3/4), 155-166.
  • Ball, S. (2010) 'New Voices, New Knowledges and the New Politics of Educational Research: the gathering of a perfect storm', European Educational Research Journal 9 (3), 124-137.
  • Nambissan, G., Ball, S. (2010) 'Advocacy networks, choice and schooling of the poor in India', Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs 10 (3), 324-343.
  • Ball, S., Maroy, C. (2009) 'School's logics of action as mediation and compromise between internal dynamics and external constraints and pressures', Compare 39 (10), 99-112.
  • Ball, S.J. (2008) The education debate: policy and politics in the 21st Century. Bristol: Policy Press.
  • Ball, S.J. (2007)  . Education plc: private sector participation in public sector education. London: Routledge.