Professor Peter Kutnick

Professor Peter Kutnick is a part-time Emeritus Professor of Psychology of Education. His work focuses on the social psychology of education in the School of Education, Communication & Society. He has also been an Honorary and Visiting Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

His main research interests focus on the social/interpersonal development of children in the context of schooling, the promotion of academic achievement within classrooms and how school-based engineering education affects students STEM-based career expectations. These interests are developed in areas of children’s moral development, the use of within-class groups for learning, large- and small-scale studies of factors affecting academic achievement in the UK and in the Caribbean, the development of social pedagogic theory, and practical alternatives to traditional pedagogies. Recent studies into school-based engineering education have explored large-scale, representative samples of students in South-east Asia and have evaluated engineering education initiatives in the UK.

Each of these research interests has received external funding, leading to publications (books, monographs, refereed articles, etc); many of which have been drawn upon by the DfE, General Teaching Council and other organisations. Research Funding for research has been received from UK-based: DfID/ODA (concerning school achievement, alternative pedagogies and gender in the Caribbean); the Economic and Social Research Council; Leverhulme Trust; Esmee Fairbairn Trust; European Community; DfES (concerning pupil grouping policy); the Royal Academy of Engineering (concerning education for engineering); and the Hong Kong Research Grants Council (implementing effective group work in a Confucian Heritage Culture).

Professor Kutnick has been responsible for research and teaching in a number of universities around the world. His appointments have been in the UK (King’s College London, University of Brighton, Roehampton Institute, University of Sussex), the Americas (University of the West Indies, California State University), and the Far East (University of Hong Kong).

Research interests

• Social pedagogic theory, especially related to group work in schools
• Engineering education in secondary schools/student STEM aspirations
• Effects of preschool on social and academic performance
• Schooling, stratification, inclusion and achievement in the Caribbean Training for group work skills

PhD supervision

Professor Kutnick is able to supervise on any of his research interests mentioned above.