Professor David James

Research

Current research

• I am leading a BERA-commissioned expert panel on UK Educational Research Funding (2024-5)
• I am part of the team for Digital Futures of Work, an international research programme on reimagining jobs, skills and education for a digital age, funded by the Singapore Government and led by Prof Phil Brown (2019-2023). https://digitalfuturesofwork.com/  

Overview

I have directed many research projects, evaluations and consultancies for a range of funders and clients, including the ESRC, UK and foreign government departments and agencies, local authorities, charities, universities, colleges and schools, all to time and within budget.

I co-designed and co-directed the ESRC project 'Transforming Learning Cultures in Further Education' (2001-2005) and the ESRC project 'Identities, Education and the White Urban Middle Classes' (2005-2007). The first of these is still the only independent, large-scale study of learning in the English FE sector. I also co-directed an ESRC seminar series on 'New directions in learning and skills in England, Scotland and Wales' (2008-2010) and was part of the core team for a policy-focused seminar series on FE and Skills across the four countries of the UK (2017-2018). I carried out (with Prof Lorna Unwin) a policy-focused study commissioned by the Minister, of high quality vocational programmes in Further Education in Wales - see http://ppiw.org.uk/files/2016/01/PPIW-Report-Fostering-High-Quality-Further-Education-in-Wales.pdf

I co-directed the ESRC Research Project Processes and Practices of Governing in Further Education Colleges in the UK (2018-2021) https://fe-governing.stir.ac.uk/

I led a research project funded by the Welsh Government entitled Pandemic-related assessment innovations: implications for teacher education. The study concluded in Spring 2021. The team included researchers from University of Cardiff and Cardiff Metropolitan University and involved colleagues in schools that are part of the Cardiff ITE Partnership. The report can be seen at:  https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/148030/ 

The central theme in my research is the relationship between education and social inequalities.  I have investigated and written on a range of topics including:

• lifelong learning policy and practice
• student experience and mature studentship
• learning cultures, professionalism and policy in Further Education
• governance and governing in FE
• assessment, especially in Further and Higher Education
• secondary school choice, white middle class identity and urban schooling
• curriculum innovation, creative teaching, creativity and professionalism
• lifelong learning and work-related learning
• factors in GCSE attainment in secondary education
• policy and practice in FE across the countries of the UK
• the social theory of Bourdieu (though my work also draws on many other theoretical sources).

 Whilst most of my research work has been qualitative, I use quantitative and mixed methods as well, depending on the nature of the research questions.

I was editior and advisory group chair for the Academy of Social Sciences booklet Making the Case No. 12: Education. This was launched at the House of Commons in December 2016 at an event hosted by Neil Camichael MP, chair of the Education Select Committee. The booklet is available at https://www.acss.org.uk/mtc-12-education/ See also https://authorservices.taylorandfrancis.com/making-the-case/  A short Academy video can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9ENtH9o6zs&feature=youtu.be

Teaching

I have taught a wide range of social science topics across sociology and psychology, at every level from pre-GCSE to Doctoral. Most recent teaching areas include research methodology, learning and assessment in further and higher education, the sociology of post-compulsory education, applications of the work of Bourdieu, Marx, Weber & Fraser, social equality and inequality, psychological and cultural theories of learning.

See my session for UK ESRC Doctoral students entitled How to get clear about method, methodology, epistemology and ontology, once and for all. This has been adopted by the UK Open University and RMIT in Melbourne, amongst others. It is on You Tube, with over 166,000 views. See it here: ESRC Conference: Methods session

External examining

I've examined over 55 Doctoral theses, mostly as external examiner, in around 30 different universities in the UK and abroad. I am also an experienced external examiner for taught programmes in other universities. In 2018 I completed a four-year term of office as external examiner for the MEd/MPhil programme in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge.

Biography

My early biography helps to explain why I am a sociologist of education. My primary school classroom reflected the social class composition of the area, with children from the older established families of the village placed in the front row, and those from the postwar housing estate (including me) placed towards the back of the room. The teaching and indeed the 11+ outcomes largely reflected this same stratification, and I did not make it to the grammar or technical high school. It was only much later that I found out how this stratified transition had been achieved through a combination of curriculum differentiation, teacher attention, coaching for the test and famiial expectation. It is why the social theory of Pierre Bourdieu came to be (and continues to be) important for me.

As it turned out, the local non-selective Secondary Modern school was an excellent place to be, providing a rounded education (including being in a well-organised and demanding brass band for five years!) Many of the teachers were very switched on indeed, seeming never to miss an opportunity to spark my interest and curiosity.  I left this school with good examination results and some well-grounded confidence. Sadly, the more highly regarded 'sixth form' I went on to attend for two years was educationally poor in comparison, and I left with very modest A level results and a general disillusionment about my capabilities.

A series of short-term jobs in factories and on farms followed, then a job in local government in London, in clerical and administrative roles. In the same period I was attempting to make a living as a rock musician. A fellow musician (Dave Pask, then singer with Mark Knopfler's early band Cafe Racers) drew my attention to sociology and I attended his evening class at the local College of Further Education, gaining a good examination result. This led to the offer of a place at Bristol University, and I decided to leave my secure and well-paid job and become a 'mature' student - though I was only in my early 20s when I went there! I did very well in my degree. I could not help noticing that the well-known psychologists who championed IQ testing (and who often had eugencist beliefs) would declare it virtually impossible for me to have gone from 11+ 'failure' to the very high IQ they felt was attached to a first class honours degree. My  reading of Steven Jay Gould's excellent The Mismeasure of Man (1981, Pelican/Penguin) around that time underlined how ideas like the 'heritability' of intelligence were often a matter of political ideology and interests, serving to maintain embedded social inequalities.  

After graduating I went on to complete a Further Education teaching qualification and taught in FE colleges in London, Bath and Gloucester.  In 1989 I took up a post in the (then) Bristol Polytechnic and by 1996 had completed a part-time PhD (entitled Mature Studentship in Higher Education). I continued to work at the University of the West of England, Bristol, setting up and co-directing a research centre, and was promoted to Professor in 2004. I took up my current post at Cardiff in 2011.

Qualifications & fellowships

• 1981  BSc Hons (1st Class) Social Science, University of Bristol
• 1982  Certificate in Education (FE) [Distinction], Garnett College, London
• 1996 PhD – ‘Mature Studentship in Higher Education’, University of the West of England, Bristol (Ext. Examiner Prof R Burgess)
• 2001 Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA) (and prior equivalents)
• 2010 onwards - Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA)
• 2015 Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)
• 2024 Elected Fellow of the British Academy

Career overview

• 1975-1978 Executive Officer, Greater London Council
• 1982-1987 Lecturer in Sociology and Psychology, City of Bath College of Further Education
• 1987-89 Lecturer 2/Senior Lecturer in Staff Development, GLOSCAT
• 1989-91 Senior Lecturer in Education Policy Studies (temp.) Bristol Polytechnic
• 1991-97 Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education, UWE, Bristol
• 1997-2000 Principal Lecturer, UWE, Bristol
• 2000-04 Reader, Faculty of Education, UWE, Bristol
• 2004-11 Professor, Faculty of Education, UWE, Bristol
• 2011-19 Professor, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University and Director, ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Centre/Partnership
• 2019- Professor of Sociology of Education, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University

Honours and awards

• 2024: Elected Fellow of the British Academy 
• 2022: Awarded the Hugh Owen Medal for outstanding educational research by the Learned Society of Wales.
• 2012: Winner of book prize from The Society for Educational Studies for White Middle Class Identities and Urban Schooling (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 & 2013) (with Reay and Crozier)
• 2012: Winner (with Colley and others) of the best Annual Conference symposium at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, on 'Radical Theory for Radical Times'.  Award included acceptance of symposium at the 2013 American Educational Research Association conference in San Francisco and funding to participate.
• 2006: Winner (with Grenfell and others) of the best Annual Conference symposium at the Annual Conference of the British Educational Research Association, on 'Exploring the use and usefulness of Bourdieu’s theory of practice for educational research'. Award included acceptance of symposium for the 2007 American Educational Research Association conference in Chicago and funding to participate.

Professional memberships

• Fellow of Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS)
• Fellow of Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (FRSA)
• Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
• Member of British Sociological Association (BSA)
• Member of American Educational Research Association (AERA)
• Member of British Educational Research Association (BERA)