Professor Lizzie Rushton

Professor of Education

Education Stirling

Professor Lizzie Rushton

Contact details

About me

Elizabeth Rushton is Professor in Education and Head of the Education Division, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Stirling, where she teaches on a range of Postgraduate taught programmes and supervises doctoral and post-doctoral research.

Her research expertise is interdisciplinary, drawing on the disciplines of education and geography. This includes the education and professional development of teachers, student participation in research and decision making and, human and environment interactions over time. These areas of expertise intersect with a range of fields including geography and science education, climate change and environmental education, and decolonisation and anti-racism in education.

Her research seeks to enable and develop meaningful and reciprocal partnerships between scholarship and practice in education and geography. This includes developing pathways, such as co-authorship, so that the knowledge and understanding of teachers and young people can inform education and environmental scholarship and policy making.

Recent work has been funded by the Economic and Social Research Council, the British Educational Research Association, Leverhulme and the Royal Society of Arts. Consultancy projects include working with the British Council to develop school-based climate change education in Iraq.

She serves on the Editorial Boards of The Curriculum Journal, the Journal of Geography in Higher Education, the BERA Blog and is co-convenor of BERA's Education for Environmental Sustainability Special Interest Group.

Previously, she was Head of Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment, Institute of Education, University College London where she also held roles as Research Director of UCL’s Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education and Programme Director of the MA Education.

Prior to joining UCL she was the inaugural Programme Director of the secondary geography postgraduate certificate in education programme at King’s College London having worked as a secondary school geography teacher in south-east England. Her doctoral research focused on the Environmental History of Belize, Central America, funded by the AHRC and was completed in 2014.

•Education for environmental sustainability with a focus on inclusive and participatory approaches. •Teacher education and professional development. •Identity in education including teachers’ professional identities, science identities and collaborative identity development. •Education inequalities including gender and race and decoloniality in education settings.

Outputs (88)

Book Chapter

Changing the Climate of School-based Climate Change Education in England

Dunlop L & Rushton E (2024) Changing the Climate of School-based Climate Change Education in England. In: Pink WT, Beasy K, Maguire M, te Riele K & Towers E (eds.) Innovative School Reforms: International Perspectives on Reimagining Theory, Policy, and Practice for the Future. Education, Equity, Economy, 11. Cham: Springer, pp. 169-183. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-64900-4_10

Research Report

Research Ethics Case Studies 2024: Frontlines of climate change education

Dunlop L & Rushton E (2024) Research Ethics Case Studies 2024: Frontlines of climate change education. British Educational Research Association. Research Ethics Case Studies 2024. London. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/research-ethics-case-studies-2024-frontlines-of-climate-change-education

Edited Book

Becoming a Teacher 6th Edition

Gibbons S, Glackin M, Rushton E, Towers E & Brock R (eds.) (2023) Becoming a Teacher 6th Edition. New York: McGraw Hill. https://www.mheducation.co.uk/becoming-a-teacher-issues-in-secondary-education-6e-9780335251667-emea-group

Book Chapter

Teacher identity: developing a positive professional identity in your teaching career.

Rushton E & Towers E (2023) Teacher identity: developing a positive professional identity in your teaching career.. In: Gibbons S, Glackin M, Rushton E, Towers E & Brock R (eds.) Becoming a Teacher. 6 ed. New York: McGraw Hill. https://www.mheducation.co.uk/becoming-a-teacher-issues-in-secondary-education-6e-9780335251667-emea-group#configurable-product-options-title

Book Chapter

The pastoral role of a teacher

Jones J & Rushton E (2023) The pastoral role of a teacher. In: Gibbons S, Glackin M, Rushton E, Towers E & Brock R (eds.) New York: McGraw Hill. https://www.mheducation.co.uk/becoming-a-teacher-issues-in-secondary-education-6e-9780335251667-emea-group#configurable-product-options-title

Website Content

Dicey Dialogue: engaging scientists with public understanding.

Dunlop L & Rushton E (2023) Dicey Dialogue: engaging scientists with public understanding.. National Co-ordinating Centre for Public Engagement [Blog post] 08.09.2023. https://www.publicengagement.ac.uk/whats-new/blog/dicey-dialogue-engaging-scientists-with-public-understanding

Website Content

Understanding teacher identity in teachers’ professional lives.

Rushton E, Towers E, Rawlings Smith E & Steadman S (2023) Understanding teacher identity in teachers’ professional lives.. BERA Blog [ Blog post] 12.09.2023. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/understanding-teacher-identity-in-teachers-professional-lives-findings-from-a-systematic-review-of-the-literature

Article

The role of teacher educator virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) in mobilising policy engagement: A case study of the initial teacher training market review from England

Murtagh L & Rushton EA (2023) The role of teacher educator virtual communities of practice (VCoPs) in mobilising policy engagement: A case study of the initial teacher training market review from England. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, pp. 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866x.2023.2191306

Website Content

Decolonial and anti-racist pedagogies and curricular in teacher education: The importance of partnerships between practice and scholarship

Gandolfi H & Rushton E (2023) Decolonial and anti-racist pedagogies and curricular in teacher education: The importance of partnerships between practice and scholarship. BERA Blog [Blog post] 23.03.2023. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/decolonial-and-anti-racist-pedagogies-and-curricular-in-teacher-education-the-importance-of-partnerships-between-practice-and-scholarship

Article

Collaborative identity development during a global pandemic: exploring teacher identity through the experiences of pre-service high school teachers in England

Rushton EA, Gibbons S, Brock R, Cao Y, Finesilver C, Jones J, Manning A, Marshall B, Richardson C, Steadman S, Suh S & Towers E (2023) Collaborative identity development during a global pandemic: exploring teacher identity through the experiences of pre-service high school teachers in England. European Journal of Teacher Education, pp. 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2023.2175663

Article

The "problem" of teacher quality: exploring challenges and opportunities in developing teacher quality during the Covid-19 global pandemic in England

Towers E, Rushton EA, Gibbons S, Steadman S, Brock R, Cao Y, Finesilver C, Jones J, Manning A, Marshall B & Richardson C (2023) The "problem" of teacher quality: exploring challenges and opportunities in developing teacher quality during the Covid-19 global pandemic in England. Educational Review. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2023.2184771

Article

The challenges and affordances of online participatory workshops in the context of young people's everyday climate crisis activism: insights from facilitators

Rushton EA, Dunlop L, Atkinson L, Price L, Stubbs JE, Turkenburg-van Diepen M & Wood L (2023) The challenges and affordances of online participatory workshops in the context of young people's everyday climate crisis activism: insights from facilitators. Children's Geographies, 21 (1), pp. 137-146. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2021.2007218

Book Chapter

Mentoring School Student Research as an Approach to Geography Teacher Professional Development.

Rushton E & Walkington H (2022) Mentoring School Student Research as an Approach to Geography Teacher Professional Development.. In: Artvinli E, Gryl I, Lee J & Mitchell JT (eds.) Geography Education and Teacher Professionalization. International Perspectives on Geographical Education. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 277-290. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-04891-3_18

Article

Reflecting on 'classroom readiness' in initial teacher education in a time of global pandemic from the perspectives of eight university providers from across England, UK

Rushton EA, Murtagh L, Ball-Smith C, Black B, Dunlop L, Gibbons S, Ireland K, Morse R, Reading C & Scott C (2022) Reflecting on 'classroom readiness' in initial teacher education in a time of global pandemic from the perspectives of eight university providers from across England, UK. Journal of Education for Teaching, 49 (4), pp. 551-568. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2022.2150840

Website Content

The “impractical wisdom” of the Early Career Framework.

Murtagh L, Dawes L, Rushton E & Ball-Smith C (2022) The “impractical wisdom” of the Early Career Framework.. BERA Blog [Blog post] 05.10.2022. https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/the-impractical-wisdom-of-the-early-career-framework

Article

Youth co-authorship as public engagement with geoengineering

Dunlop L, Rushton E, Atkinson L, Cornelissen E, De Schrijver J, Stadnyk T, Stubbs J, Su C, Turkenburg-van Diepen M, Veneu F, Blake C, Calvert S, Dècle C, Dhassi K, Edwards R, Malaj G, Mirjanić J, Saunders W, Sinkovec Y, Vellekoop S & Yuan X (2022) Youth co-authorship as public engagement with geoengineering. International Journal of Science Education, Part B, 12 (1), pp. 60-74. https://doi.org/10.1080/21548455.2022.2027043

Policy Document

BERA Manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability

Rushton E & Dunlop L (2021) BERA Manifesto for Education for Environmental Sustainability. BERA. London. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/bera-research-commission-2019-2020-manifesto-for-education-for-environmental-sustainability-efes

Research Report

Supporting Early Career Teachers to Thrive in their first Year – A Guide for Schools.

Rushton E, Gibbons S, Brock R, Cao Y, Finesilver C, Hesketh R, Jones J, Manning A, Marshall B, Richardson C, Suh S, Steadman S & Towers E (2021) Supporting Early Career Teachers to Thrive in their first Year – A Guide for Schools.. King's College London Funded by ESRC. London. https://www.kcl.ac.uk/ecs/assets/guide-for-schools-august2021.pdf

Consultancy Report

Language Horizons Year 2 Evaluation Report.

Thomas L & Rushton E (2020) Language Horizons Year 2 Evaluation Report.. Language Horizons Project. Stirling. http://mflmentoring.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Final-report-LHY2-DEC2020.pdf

Book Chapter

Increasing Environmental Action Through Climate Change Education Programmes that Enable School Students, Teachers and Technicians to Contribute to Genuine Scientific Research

Rushton EAC (2019) Increasing Environmental Action Through Climate Change Education Programmes that Enable School Students, Teachers and Technicians to Contribute to Genuine Scientific Research. In: Leal Filho W & Hemstock SL (eds.) Climate Change and the Role of Education. Climate Change Management. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 507-523. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-32898-6_28

Research centres/groups