Dr Wendy Bignold Profile Page

Dr Wendy Bignold is the Vice Dean of Education at Liverpool Hope University. She began her professional career as an early years teacher in England and has since worked extensively in Asia in a wide variety of educational settings, both formal and non-formal, encompassing the full age range of learners. She was Vice Principal of a rural school in Pakistan and helped to set up a number of schools in isolated villages in the North West Frontier Province. She was consultant to the Government of Bangladesh on adult literacy and worked for the Aga Khan Foundation, an international humanitarian agency, in Tajikistan, assessing the needs of various education programmes in the context of a civil war. She has provided professional development and training for educationalists in Sri Lanka and Hong Kong and led study tours of education initiatives in India.

Wendy is also the Co-director of the Institute for Research in Education at Society at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, India, a joint collaboration between Hope and St. Xavier’s.

As well as Education for Development and Global Citizenship her teaching interests include early years education, diversity and research methodology. She currently teaches on the Childhood and Youth Studies degree and the Education Studies pathway at Hope.

Wendy's PhD study was entitled Unicycling and Identity: Narratives of motivation and achievement in young riders. This is the first piece of academic work to be undertaken on unicycling and starts on the premise that unicycling is a lifestyle sport. She concludes that it triggers high levels of motivation in young riders and positively influences their identity and self-esteem. She suggests ways in which schools might value unicycling, or indeed other youth-selected leisure activities, as a means of harnessing the achievement behaviour which they develop.

Wendy's research interests are in:

• global citizenship
• international education
• cross-cultural collaboration
• Motivation and identity in young people
• student formation
• narrative methodologies

Wendy welcomes research proposals from undergraduate and postgraduate students in the research areas identified above.

Wendy’s research interests are reflected in her conference presentations and publications. She writes regularly for an international audience. Her most recent publications include:

• Bignold, W., 2009, “Unicycling as a motivator of young people: implications for an alternative curriculum”, British Education Studies Association Journal.
• Bignold, W. and Gayton, L. (eds.) 2009, Global Issues in Comparative Education. Exeter: Learning Matters.
• Bamber, P., Bignold, W. and D’Costa, C., 2009 “The Impact of Social Involvement and Community Engagement on Students in Higher Education in India and the UK: A Comparative Study” Journal of the World Universities Forum, Vol. 2, 2009.
• Bignold, W. and Mcleod, N., 2008, “Creative Project Development – An Early Years Case Study” in Bamber, P., Bourke, L. and Clarkson, J. (Eds.) (2008) In safe hands; guiding principles for International Service-Learning.  Stoke on Tren: Trentham.
• Bignold, W., 2007, "The Benefits of Unicycling for Young People and Older Riders Too", The Unicycle Magazine, Issue Three, 2007, p.54
• Bignold, W., 2006 "The Child, Family & Society" in Sharp, J. (ed.) 2006 Education Studies: An Issues-based Approach; Exeter, Learning Matters
• Bignold, W., 2006, "Motivation of Unicyclists", The Unicycle Magazine, Issue One, 2006, p.62
• Bignold, W., 2006, "Is Unicycling a Sport", The Unicycle Magazine, Issue Two, 2006, p.43
• Bignold, W. 2005 "Valuing Diversity: the role of support workers in the early years", p10-23 in Campbell, A & Fairburn, G. (eds.) 2005, Working with Support in the Classroom. London: Paul Chapman
• Hankin, L & Bignold, W., 2006 "Global Education" in Sharp, J. (ed.) 2006 Education Studies: An Issues-based Approach: Exeter, Learning Matters

Wendy has given the following conference papers recently:

• Bignold, W. and Su, F. (2010) 'Employing narrative methodology in educational research effectively - two case studies'. Paper presented at 2010 British Educational Research Association (BERA) Annual Conference, 4th September 2010, University of Warwick, UK. Full conference paper is available in the British Education Index's Education-line collection
• Bignold, W., 2009, The Three Cs of Cross-Institutional Research: Culture, Curriculum and Community. Paper presented at the IPED Conference, University of Coventry, 14-15th September, 2009.
• Bignold, W., 2009, Can Education Studies develop students as global citizens? Paper presented at the British Education Studies Association Conference, Stafford, 2-3rd July 2009.
• Bignold, W. & Clough, P., 2009, Establishing a joint research institute between two institutions in India and the UK: Lessons from practice. Paper presented at the 2nd World Universities Forum Conference, Mumbai, India, 17-19th January 2009.
• Bignold, W., D’Costa, C. and Bamber, P., 2009, The Impact of Social Involvement and Community Engagement on Students in Higher Education in India and the UK: A Comparative Study. Paper presented at the 2nd World Universities Forum Conference, Mumbai, India, 17-19th January 2009.
• Bignold, W., 2008, Research Informed Teaching: Adapting a PhD thesis into a module. Paper presented at the British Education Studies Association Colloquium, Manchester, 19th June 2008.
• Bignold, W., 2008, Developing Creativity: Seeing the world differently. Keynote lecture given at International ETEN Conference, Liverpool, 24th April, 2008.