Karen Parish

Faglige interesser

Research interests:

• Global/local nexus
• Comparative education and comparative methodology
• Human rights and in particular in educational contexts
• Institutional theory and in particular institutional logics
• Inclusion and school choice

 My most recent study is entitled - An embedded human rights logic? A comparative study of International Baccalaureate  schools in different contexts.

This study contributes to increased knowledge about if and how the global logic of human rights, is embedded in the International Baccalaureate Organisation from the global to the local level. The study adopts a comparative case study approach that takes the global human rights logic as the phenomenon of interest. A vertical comparison is adopted to explore if and how the global human rights logic is embedded in the International Baccalaureate Organisation at the global level (macro), how it is experienced at the local level (meso) and how it is adhered to at the individual level (micro). At the same time, a horizontal comparison is adopted to explore between different International Baccalaureate Organisation school contexts (meso) and between individual students who are taking the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (micro). This study has contributed a new methodological tool for assessing student adherence to the human rights logic that can be used to give an overview of the competence that students have. At the same time, by adopting the institutional logics perspective, this thesis contributes a theoretical framework that enables the complexity of the institutional environment to be explored at different levels of abstraction, thus contributing to our understanding of the global/local nexus.

Bakgrunn

BA (2i) in Applied Social Sciences (Canterbury Christchurch University)

PGCE (pass) post graduate certificate of education for secondary school teaching (Brighton University)

MA in Comparative Education (with distinction) (Institute of Education, University College London)

I worked as a secondary and upper secondary school teacher in the UK for over 10 years. During this time I also worked as an examiner for the OCR exam board.