Dr Derek Bland
This person does not currently hold a position at QUT.
Biography
Derek Bland's focus as a researcher and practitioner is the intersection of low socio-economic status and education. Building on his practical experience, he currently teaches undergraduate and post graduate courses in inclusive education, coordinating a 4th Year core unit and two school/university projects improving educational outcomes for “at-risk” groups. First joining QUT in 1991, he established the Q-Step Program, a special entry and student support initiative of the university to assist people from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Prior to this, Derek taught secondary art and worked with the Disadvantaged Schools Program as a regional coordinator in Victoria.- Research 2012 (current): 'Re-imagining Schools to Inform the Design and use of Learning Spaces' (Queensland Council for Social Science Innovation) with Dr Hilary Hughes and Dr Jill Willis. The key aim of this study is to identify pedagogic principles underpinning practices in re-imagined learning spaces in schools that improve students’ engagement and educational outcomes.
- 2009: 'Imagine a School....' This CLI-funded ECR visual research project, invited Year 5 and 6 students from a range of Queensland schools to imagine, draw, and write about their ideal learning environment.
- Research interests
- Socio-economic disadvantage and social class in education
- Imagination in education
- Young people as researchers
- Participatory action research
Personal details
Keywords
educational disadvantage, imagination in education, participatory action research, students as researchers
Discipline
Education Systems, Specialist Studies in Education
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- PhD (Queensland University of Technology)
Professional memberships and associations
Professional memberships:
- Member of the Children and Youth Research Centre (CYRC), QUT
- Member of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE)
- Queensland College of Teachers Certificate of Teacher (QCoT) Registration
Selected publications
- Bland D, (2012) Imagination for re-engagement from the margins of education, Australian Educational Researcher, 39 (1), pp. 75-89.
- Bland D, (2011) Marginalised students and insider knowledge. In W Kidd & G Czerniawski, The Student Voice Handbook: Bridging the Academic/Practitioner Divide, Emerald Group Publishing, pp. 389-397.
- Bland D, (2010) Drawing on imagination: Primary students' ideal learning environments, Proceedings of the 2010 Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) International Education Research Conference, pp. 1-22.
- Bland D, (2011) From classroom resistance to school reform, Institutional Transformation to Engage a Diverse Student Body [International Perspectives on Higher Education Research, Volume 6], pp. 57-65.
- Atweh B, Bland D, Smith K, Woodward A, (2012) Engaging students in research relationships for school reform. In C Day, The Routledge International Handbook of Teacher and School Development, Routledge, pp. 233-242.
- Kimber M, Carrington S, Mercer L, Bland D, (2011) Enhancing professional ethics: service-learning in teacher education. In L Ehrich, D Beutel & J Millwater, Practical Experiences in Professional Education: A transdisciplinary approach, Post Pressed, pp. 115-134.
- Bland D, Carrington S, Brady K, (2009) Young people, imagination and re-engagement in the middle years, Improving Schools, 12 (3), pp. 237-248.
- Carrington S, Bland D, Brady K, (2010) Training young people as researchers to investigate engagement and disengagement in the middle years, International Journal of Inclusive Education, 14 (5), pp. 449-462.
- Bland D, (2009) At-risk students and classroom engagement: listening to ''voices of possibility and hope''. In D Beutel & J Millwater, Stepping Out into the Real World of Education, Pearson Australia, pp. 92-108.
- Atweh B, Bland D, Carrington S, Cavanagh R, (2008) School disengagement: Its constructions, investigation and management, Proceedings of the Australian Association for Research in Education (AARE) 2007 International Education Research Conference, pp. 1-16.
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Derek, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).