Dr Alpesh Maisuria

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Role:

Professor of Education Policy in Critical Education

Department staff:

ACE - Education and Childhood

Qualifications:BA (Hons), MA (Lon, distinction), PhD (UCL), SFHEA
Position:Professor of Education Policy in Critical Education
Department:ACE - Education and Childhood
Email:Alpesh.Maisuria@uwe.ac.uk
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About me

Alpesh Maisuria is a Professor of Education Policy at the University of the West of England, Bristol. His work focuses on understanding how education policies shape society and often contribute to inequalities. He uses ideas from critical education and critical realism to explore the political and ideological mechanisms that generate policy decisions, and subsequent parliamentary scrutiny. He has published widely in these areas and received several awards for his teaching and research.

Alpesh has a strong international interest. He has carried out doctoral and funded research in Sweden, taught about Cuba’s education system, and regularly speaks at research events around the world.

He is also an Editor for the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies and he is an organiser of the International Conferences on Critical Education (ICCE). In 2022, he edited the Encyclopaedia of Marxism and Education, the first book of its kind, featuring contributions from scholars worldwide. His recent co-edited book, Working with Critical Realism (2023), was nominated for the Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize.

From 2022 to 2025, Alpesh served as a Parliamentary Academic Fellow in the UK House of Commons, working in the Members Library he specialised in schools’ policy. In this role, he wrote briefings, and provided research and information directly to MPs to enable them to fulfil their legislative duties and constituency representation. In addition, he was an advisor for the Education Select Committee to help scrutinise the government through writing briefings and contributing decisions to select witnesses to provide oral evidence to MPs.

His Fellowship culminated in a study exploring based on how academic research is used by parliamentary researchers. The outputs are designed to enhance the knowledge flow into parliament, and its impact on policy. Contact Alpesh for more information or click here

Area of expertise

Education policy,

Sociology of education,

Parliamentary Studies,

Critical education,

Marxist theory,

Critical realism,

Social class.

Particular areas of concern include: Public education, student fees, marketisation, academic working conditions, private schools, Academies/free schools, testing, league tables, de-professionalisation of educators, alternative education policies and systems

Alpesh welcomes doctoral applicants and media enquiries in any of these areas.

Current Doctoral students:

Aga Kowalska (PhD Director) Policy, Practice and Power: A Bourdieusian Analysis of Head Teacher's Perspectives in the Exclusion of Children with Autism from Secondary Schools

Craig Lennox (EdD Director) To what extent are neoliberal policies in Higher Education in England impacting on academic identities?

Daniel Scullane (PhD Supervisor) Further Education Successful Governance (tbc)

Justin Vafadari (PhD Director) A Case Study to Explore the Pedagogical Principles of Decolonisation by School Leaders in Bristol

Anna Birchfiel (PhD Director) Crisis in Education: The Case for a National Education Service

Stephen Beresford (PhD Director) Grammar Schools and Social Mobility in England

Joe Brown (EdD Director) School Readiness in ECEC Settings in England

Anne-Marie Layet (EdD Director) How do we share talking? A Critical Realist informed participatory research study into the cultural linguistic community of children in their first year of school

Euthan Newman (EdD Director) How University Lecturers Carry out Assessment and Marking

External Doctoral candidates

Robert Michael Parry (PhD Supervisor), Workers Education in England, University of Malta (with Prof Peter Mayo)

Publications

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