Profiles of the PhD students associated with the Jubilee Centre can be found below
Lois Banks is a part-time PhD student supervised by Prof. Andrew Peterson and Dr. Catherine Darnell. Her study commenced in February 2020 and it examines the relationship between teachers and parents as character educators. The study will take a close look at young children’s own perceptions of moral virtues at both home and school. Lois completed her MA Education at Canterbury Christ Church University in 2018, which also focused on teacher/parent relationships in character education. The research had a positive impact on her former workplace, Crest Infants and Nursery School and put character education at the heart of school. Lois is now an Assistant Headteacher at Hoo St. Werburgh Primary School.
Character development involves internalising virtues such as honesty, kindness, and bravery; and a virtue is internalised as it becomes increasingly autonomous or “self-governed.” Young children, however, are not autonomous; it is necessary for adults to control and shape their behaviour through extrinsic motivators (rewards, sanctions, etc.). But how could external control ever give rise to autonomy? This is the famous “paradox of moral education.” My PhD, which is funded by the Economics and Social Research Council (ESRC), investigates whether the paradox might be resolved by encouraging children to engage in phronesis-guided reflection.
Phronesis, or “practical wisdom,” refers to excellence in ethical decision-making. It has several components, including adjudication (resolving conflict among conflicting virtues) and a “blueprint” (an overarching picture of what it means to live a good life). Invoking these two components, phronesis-guided reflection would encourage children to consider how conflict between virtues should be resolved in light of the sort of life they want to lead. Could such reflection prompt a shift towards autonomy?
To answer this question, I plan to conduct a classroom-based intervention. Students initially motivated by extrinsic rewards will engage in a virtuous activity (e.g., gratitude journaling) and be randomly assigned to an intervention (phronesis-guided reflection) or control group. Autonomy will be measured via Self-Regulation Questionnaires before and after the intervention. The hypothesis predicts that the intervention group will make significantly greater gains in autonomy than the control group. We’ll see what happens!
During the first year of my PhD, the focus of the project shifted slightly. Rather than focusing solely on autonomy, the primary outcome is now wisdom—conceptualised as encompassing autonomy, as well as moral perception, emotional regulation, moral identity, and moral reasoning. The project will first involve the development and validation of a wisdom measure for adolescents, before evaluating whether specific reflective practices can support the development of wisdom in young people.
Rachael started a part-time PhD in Education in 2023, under the supervision of Professor Andrew Peterson and Dr Shane McLoughlin, with the title ‘The ‘desire to know’: an exploration of pupil curiosity and its connections with flourishing’.
The thesis explores curiosity, often referred to as the desire to know, as a fundamental human motivator. Studies have shown that curiosity plays a vital role in how adults and children engage with the world and with each other. However, curiosity is a multi-faceted concept and reductive interpretations that classify people as either curious or incurious may miss nuanced understandings of how people experience curiosity and how it relates to their daily lives.
It is generally accepted that young children are naturally curious, and that curiosity declines as children grow up; however, there is limited data that elucidates whether this applies to all dimensions of curiosity. Therefore, whilst curiosity is a widely used term in education, especially in association with knowledge acquisition, there are gaps in the literature regarding the role curiosity plays in the wider social and emotional lives of school pupils and whether one or more forms of curiosity have connections to human flourishing. Rachael intends to examine these questions empirically through a series of school case studies.
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Karen Eamens is a part-time PhD student and secondary deputy headteacher. She commenced her PhD studies in 2020 and is supervised by Professor Andrew Peterson and Dr Tom Harrison. She originally read history and law at the Australian National University, and after training as a teacher, went on to complete a Master of Human Resource Management and a Master of Public Administration.
Karen is interested in the relationship between school culture and teacher wellbeing and hopes her research will identify specific actions school leaders can take to build positive, resilient, and inclusive school communities that buffer teachers against the stressors of their profession.
Michael began a part-time PhD in Education in 2020, under the title ‘How does a focus on character education shape positive relationships between teachers and pupils in a school?’
The proposed study carries on from the work Michael has been doing over the past three years as a Research Fellow at the Jubilee Centre and will look at the under explored area of how character education can impact or influence teacher-student relationships primarily in secondary schools in the UK. The study will aim to examine three primary questions:
1. How do teachers and pupils within a school perceive their relationships?
2. What role does character education contribute to these relationships?
3. What challenges and barriers do teachers and pupils face when attempting to develop positive relationships?
Mike joined the Jubilee Centre in May 2017 as a Research Fellow. View his profile here.
Eliana’s research explores how national identity is communicated in the educational materials used in Singapore’s citizenship education curriculum, especially with regard to the multicultural profile of the country’s population. This project involves the multimodal analysis of educational materials, such as textbooks, used to teach various subjects across primary and secondary levels.
Dávid Laco is a part-time PhD student (supervised by Prof. Andrew Peterson and Dr. Tom Harrison) whose research focuses on character development of young adults through intentional residential programs.
David studied Psychology and Business Studies (Edinburgh University) and Character Education (Birmingham University) and works as the Residing Director of Baraka, an innovative residential character education program at C. S. Lewis Bilingual High School (Bratislava, Slovakia). At The Jubilee Centre, he has also collaborated as a Research Consultant for character developmental projects for the Templeton World Charity Foundation, with research emphasis on Qualitative Methodologies and Relational Virtues.
Julie’s PhD focus is on the importance of humility as a virtue and how its emergence influences the school-based mentor/novice teacher relationship during the professional practice component of teacher education programmes.
supervised by Professor Andrew Peterson and Dr. Paul Watts, Robin has been a teacher in both Primary and Secondary phases of education and is currently Head of Year of a large Primary school in Birmingham. He undertook the MA in Character Education, discovering a passion for teacher education and the moral and ethical development that is available through ITE. Completing the MA inspired Robin to apply to do a PhD. Robin’s research is focussed on civic character and civic virtue within teacher education and how educational policy/educational developments have affected the development of civic virtues for teachers. Robin is focussed on developing a meaningful account of these issues by using a ‘teacher voice’/narrative approach, catching the feelings and thoughts of teachers across different time periods.
I am particularly interested in exploring how parents from diverse cultural backgrounds engage in character education at home and how schools can build stronger, more collaborative partnerships with families. This research aims to examine family dynamics and evaluate targeted interventions, such as designing and testing a Home-Based Character Toolkit that outlines specific strategies parents use—such as dialogue, role modeling, and family rituals—to align with school values.