Dr Konstanze Spohrer
SENIOR LECTURER IN EDUCATION STUDIES
Education Studies
0151 291 3623 .
spohrek@hope.ac.uk
I joined Liverpool Hope University in 2012 after completing my PhD at the University of Strathclyde. My doctoral research examined policy discourses of raising 'aspiration' and their negotiation in a secondary school. Previously, I worked as a researcher at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern after obtaining a degree in Social Sciences at the University of Hanover, Germany.
My research is concerned with social inequalities and social justice in education. I am particularly interested in the ways in which educational trajectories and experiences are shaped by dimensions such as social class, gender and ethnicity. My recent work has examined how social justice is conceptualised in policy discourses on aspiration, social mobility and widening participation. I have an interest in social theory, in particular in the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault.
Research profile on ResearchGate:
Konstanze Spohrer on ResearchGate
Selected publicationsSpohrer, K. (2021). Resilience, self-discipline and good deeds - examining enactments of character education in English secondary schools. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, pp.1-20.
Spohrer, K. and Bailey, P.L., (2020). Character and resilience in English education policy: social mobility, self-governance and biopolitics. Critical Studies in Education, 61(5), pp.561-576.
Spohrer, K., Stahl, G. and Bowers-Brown, T. (2018). Constituting neoliberal subjects? 'Aspiration' as technology of government and self in UK policy discourse. Journal of Education Policy, 33(3), pp. 327-342. doi: 10.1080/02680939.2017.1336573
Spohrer, K. (2016) Negotiating and contesting 'Success': Discourses of aspiration in a UK secondary school. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37(3), pp. 411-425.
Spohrer, Konstanze (2011) Deconstructing 'Aspiration': UK policy debates and European policy trends, European Educational Research Journal 10(1), 53-63