UCD School of Education

I began my teaching career in 1983 in Tallaght, Dublin 24 where I taught for seventeen years. I joined the Department of Education Inspectorate in 2000 and in September 2006 moved to UCD to take up a position as lecturer in education with specific responsibility for developing the work of the school in the area of school leadership and management.

Since my appointment to the staff in the School of Education in UCD I have initiated and been centrally involved in a number of research awards to the School of Education. These awards are primarily in the areas of educational leadership and educational disadvantage. My recent international work in relation to educational leadership under the Erasmus Intensive Programme has resulted in the identification of research and publication possibilities in conjunction with colleagues from the University of Oslo; the University of Christchurch Canterbury, University of Murcia Spain, Seluck University Turkey and Jagiellonian University Poland.  Each year our team hosts a summer school in one of the participating countries for students on masters programmes. Our first edited book, drawing on the work of the intensive programme,  Mac Ruairc, G. Ottesen, E. & Precey, R. (in press) Leadership for Inclusive Education, Vision Values Voices, Netherlands: SENSE will be published by the end of 2012. We are currently working on a proposal for a second publication on leadership for democratic citizenship. I was appointed as expert adviser to the European Policy Network on School Leadership (EPNSoL) in 2011. So far with EPNSoL I have taken the lead role in co-authoring a seminal background chapter, moderated a weeklong online discussion and delivered two keynote addresses to the group. At the moment, at the request of the EU commission, we are working on developing a clear research focus, the findings of which are required to impact EU policy on leadership directly.  

In the area of educational disadvantage I have secured funding from youngballymun in association with Atlantic Philantropy to examine a number of factor that impact on children engagement with school in marginalised communities. I continue to support the work of the youngballymun on their literacy initiatives. As a development of this work I chaired the Strategic Innovation Fund/ Limerick Regeneration Literacy Committee from 2009 - 2011. In all of my work, I am deeply committed to attempting to provide a better insight into the reproduced patterns of inequality that persist in the education system. In doing this I try to maintain a theoretical and analytical focus on the complexity of the issue and the deeply embedded nature of the marginalisation in the structures and practices that constitute the education system. 
 
I have also developed research interests in the area of teacher education, which is linked quite closely to my previous position as an Inspector with the Department of Education and Science.   From this research activity I have published in peer reviewed journals Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Teaching and Studies (ISI Thompson), the European Journal of Teacher Education (Ranked A on the ERIH) and Irish Educational Studies (ISI Thompson).  I have presented at a number of international refereed conferences nationally and internationally. In these settings I have met a number of European and International academics with whom I have made excellent contacts which have resulted in a number of important collaborations in the field of education. I am a co-principal investigator on a recent Worldbank funded project focusing on developing the capacity of teacher educators in Iraq.