Tania's professional background is in youth, community and play work. Her research is on youth services, and how policy interacts with professional and voluntary practice and young people’s lives. Tania teaches in the areas of education policy, informal and community education, child and youth studies, and interdisciplinary social science for social change.

Research

Tania's primary research area is the policy and practice of children's and young people's services, with a focus on critical, radical, transformatory and anti-oppressive youth work. She worked with Louise Doherty to research how young people and youth workers experience evaluation and outcomes frameworks in a challenging policy context, and how evaluation and accountability can better serve communities.

Her book, Grassroots Youth Work: Policy, Passion and Resistance in Practice (Policy Press 2016), drew on a three year qualitative research project investigating how youth workers experienced a working context dominated by managerialism and marketisation in times of austerity. Tania is interested in young people's and children's experiences of education and everyday life in a challenging and inequitable policy context.

Tania draws on critical theory from a number of areas including the sociology of education policy, intersectional feminism, anarchism, anti-racist activism, and activist scholarship. She is committed to co-creating and sharing her research with practitioners, young people, decision makers and others, including through dialogical workshops, non-academic writing, and collaboration with artists and filmmakers.

Research interests

• Youth work
• Community education
• Playwork
• Anti-oppressive practice
• Education policy
• Radical, alternative and environmental education

Teaching

Tania is the Programme Director for the MA Education, Policy and Society course and teaches on courses related to this MA. She teaches on the BA Social Sciences programme and was part of planning and setting up this programme. She also teaches on the (International) Child Studies programme and contributes more widely to teaching throughout the School.

Tania is the Programme Director for the MA Education, Policy and Society and teaches on modules related to this MA, including Critical Perspectives on Education Policy and Social Context of Education. She teaches on the BA Social Sciences programme, which she was involved in planning and setting up, and co-convenes the module Learning out of School. She also teaches on the MA International Child Rights and Development and contributes more widely to teaching throughout the School.

PhD supervision

Tania supervises doctoral students and is happy to supervise in the following areas:

• Youth work, community work and playwork
• Critical, democratic, anti-oppressive, radical and/or environmental education.

Further information

For publications and further information, please see Tania's research profile on PURE.