This group provides a forum for the development of interdisciplinary, psychosocial approaches to educational and social research. Psychosocial approaches foreground questions of subjectivity and affect, incorporating tools from social and psychoanalytic theory to refine methodological and analytical frameworks used in empirical research. Members of the research group are working on a wide range of projects that draw on a variety of approaches, from more traditional psychoanalytic work, such as Klein, Bion and Lacan to theories of subjectivity that go beyond the psychoanalytic tradition, such as Zizek, Butler, and Deleuze. The group provides a focus for this work and supports the generation of new ideas and collaborations amongst staff and graduate students using psychosocial theories and methodologies in their research. Current and recent ESRC funded research projects include: learner identities in primary classrooms; young people and risk in urban settings; and the (re)production of knowledge in higher education.

The research interests of group members are wide ranging and draw upon a broad range of (inter)disciplinary perspectives. They include:

• Early childhood education
• Play in the curriculum
• Gender and violence
• The education of childcare workers
• Young people’s engagements with new media
• Teachers’ professional identities
• Learning, affect and group processes
• Social inequalities organised around gender/sexuality, race, and class
• Knowledge in higher education
• Conceptualisations of life trajectories in social and psychoanalytic theory
• The relationship between subjectivity and social formations
• Psychosocial methodologies
• Ethnographic and interview methodologies
• The recontextualisation of knowledge

The main aims of the group are:
a) To constitute an active forum for the development and exchange of ideas on psychosocial approaches to educational research
b) To foster collaborative research and writing within the group and between members of the group and other partners within and outside of the IoE
c) To stimulate postgraduate research in this area
d) To develop teaching within the area of psychosocial perspectives on educational enquiry on courses across IoE faculties and the doctoral school

For further information about the group's activities contact one of the co- leaders: Claudia Lapping, Jessica Ringrose and Caroline Pelletier