Chapter in ‘The Classical Music Industry’

I’m really pleased to have a chapter in a recently published edited volume, The Classical Music Industry, edited by Chris Dromey and Julia Haferkorn. My chapter looks at the ways in which class and gender influenced the aspirations and career pathways of young classical musicians – read the abstract here. There is a launch event happening on 16 October 2018 at Middlesex University but unfortunately due to teaching commitments I am unable to make it – such a pity as the editors have done a great job both on the conference and the book of pulling together an interesting range of perspectives from industry and academia.

If you can’t persuade your library to buy the book, then email me anna.bull@port.ac.uk and I can share a pre-publication copy.

Evaluating evaluations – questioning the evidence base for El Sistema

Earlier this year Geoff Baker, Mark Taylor and I published an article for British Journal of Music Education analysing two evaluations of El Sistema or El Sistema-inspired programmes. Geoff has blogged about our article, and it is well worth reading his book about El Sistema and the rest of his blog posts if you are not familiar with his work.

As with all my publications, if you don’t have access, please email me anna.bull@port.ac.uk and I can send a copy.

Critical perspectives on ‘character education’

Along with Kim Allen from University of Leeds, earlier this year I edited a special issue for Sociological Research Online on ‘character education’. We also wrote an article about how character education policies have migrated from the US to the UK, following the funding that has put this idea on the UK policy agenda back to its source. If you want the blog-length version, read our short piece here.

We ran a launch event for the special issue at Goldsmiths, University of London in July, and had some great speakers. Two of the responses to the special issue are now up on the Sociological Research Online blog, by Val Gillies and Akane Kanai.

New report: ‘Silencing students: institutional responses to staff sexual misconduct in higher education’.

My new report for The 1752 Group has been published. We have also published a consultation document on investigations guidelines for HE institutions, drawing on evidence from the research.

You can read coverage in WonkHE and The Guardian as well.