Dr Tamara Bibby

  • Qualifications and position:
    • PhD
    • Lecturer in Education (Learning and Teaching)
    • Programme director for the Bachelor of Education
  • Faculty:
    • Faculty of Children and Learning
  • Department:
    • Department of Learning, Curriculum and Communication
  • Summary:
    • Tamara has a background in primary education and is particularly interested in psychosocial dimensions of student and teacher experiences of learning. Her recent ESRC funded research enabled her to to follow a group of primary school children across three academic years (five terms). This work has enabled her begin to unpack the processes involved in the mutual production of learner identities in one primary school.

      She remains interested in the ways in which specific curriculum, policy and practice issues impact upon generalist primary teachers – the intersections of policy, curriculum and teachers' personal and professional lives – and how teachers' accomodations to policy impact classroom relationships. In exploring wider issues of pedagogy, Tamara contiunes to return to mathematics education as a site of special interest. She is currently developing psychoanalytically informed approaches to policy and curriculum research and social justice issues, particularly relating to age and gender.
  • Teaching:
    • Course leader and tutor on the Ed.D. specialism course 'Using psychoanalytic theory to understand education and educational research'
      Tutor for MA Psychosocial Studies in Education (Psychosocial Approaches to Learning)
      Tutor for MA Effective Learning (Teaching and Learning in Classrooms)
  • Research Projects:
    • • Children's learner identities in mathematics at Key Stage 2 2005-2007, ESRC (RES-000-22-1272)
      • Moving to two-tier GCSE mathematics examinations, An independent evaluation of the 2005 GCSE Pilot and Trial 2006, QCA
      • Mental calculation: interpretations and implementation 2001-2002, The Nuffield Foundation
      • Primary school teachers' personal and professional relationships with mathematics 1997-2001, ESRC Scholarship Raising Attainment in Numeracy 1995-1996, The Nuffield Foundation
  • Postgraduate Research:
    • My research interests include: experiences of learning, pedagogy, psychosocial research, primary schooling, the ways policy is enacted in classrooms, working with young people in research contexts, pupil voice, mathematics education.

      Research students:
      • Rachel Edmondson - Children's use of exploratory talk in primary school mathematics classrooms
      • Gill Schiller - "Just for fun": An exploration of boys' use of humour in a low-stream Israeli classroom
      • Clare Seymour - Globally mobile families settling into new educational settings
      • Jean-Pierre Le Tissier - Promoting metacognition within secondary Modern Foreign Languages learning in UK through an Assessment for Learning approach.
      • Yve Posner - "Its not my job to do research I'm here to train teachers": An exploration of lecturer professional identities in HE
  • Professional Activities:
    • Editorial board - Pedagogy, Culture & Society (Reviews editor)
      External examiner for professional studies MA routes at Sheffield Hallam University
  • Conferences/presentations:
    • • The Three Deans' Conference: Challenging Inequality in Education: Democratic and Transnational Interventions, Institute of Education, July 2010
      • ESRC funded seminar series 'Mathematical Relationships: identities and participation' Manchester University. 'Pedagogy: a psychoanalytically informed redefinition drawing on data from a KS2 classroom'. November, 2006
      • Sheffield Hallam University, Department of Mathematics Education: 'Learning not to love mathematics: a case study'. February, 2007
      • University of Manchester, re-launch of journal Pedagogy, Culture and Society: 'How do children understand themselves as learners? Towards a redefinition of pedagogy'. February, 2007
      • BSRLM, March 2007, London Southbank University: 'Shanhrul: learning not to love mathematics – a case study'.
      • BERA, 2007. 'Issues raised in reporting "Children's learner identities in mathematics at Key Stage 2.": some ethical questions'.
      • Dissemination seminar: findings of the ESRC project. November 2007
      • The Three Deans' Conference: Radical traditions: pursuing hope and social justice in education, Institute of Education, August 2008
      • Mathematics Interest Group, King's College, London. October 2008
      • BERA. 'Issues raised in reporting "Children's learner identities in mathematics at Key Stage 2.": some ethical questions'. September 2007
 

Contact details

Contact details

  • Email:

  • Address:
  • Department of Learning, Curriculum and Communication
    Institute of Education University of London
    20 Bedford Way
    London
    WC1H 0AL

  • Office Location:
  • Room 735
    20 Bedford Way, WC1H 0AL

Publications

  • Bibby, T. (2010) Education - an 'impossible profession'? Psychoanalytic explorations of learning and classrooms. London: Routledge.
  • Bibby, T. (2010) 'What does it mean to characterise mathematics as 'masculine'?: bringing a psychoanalytic lens to bear on the teaching and learning of mathematics' In M. Walshaw (ed.), , Unpacking Pedagogy: New Perspectives for Mathematics Classrooms. . Greenwich, CT: Information Age.
    Further information
  • Bibby, T. (2009) How do children understand themselves as learners? Towards a redefinition of pedagogy. Pedagogy, Culture and Society.
  • Bibby, T. (2009) 'How do pedagogic practices impact on learner identities in mathematics? A psychoanalytically informed response' In L. Black, H. Mendick and Y. Solomon (eds), Mathematical Relationships: identities and participation. London: Routledge.
  • Bibby, T. (2008) 'The experience of learning in classrooms: moving beyond Vygotsky' In T. Brown (ed.), The Psychology of Mathematics Education: A Psychoanalytic Displacement. Rotterdam: Sense.
  • Bibby, T. (2002) 'Shame: an emotional response to doing mathematics as an adult and a teacher', British Educational Research Journal 28(5), 705-722.
    Further information
  • Bibby, T. (2002) 'Creativity and logic in primary school mathematics: a view from the classroom', For the Learning of Mathematics 22(3), 10-13.
  • Brown, M., Brown, P., and Bibby, T. (2008) 'Brown 'I would rather die': reasons given by 16-year-olds for not continuing their study of mathematics', Research in Mathematics Education 10(1), 3-18.
  • Stobart, G., Bibby, T., and Goldstein, H. (2005) Moving to two-tier GCSE mathematics examinations: An independent evaluation of the 2005 GCSE Pilot and Trial (Final report). QCA.
    Further information
  • '[066] - Right - Unpublished thesis 43215'