Alistair Ross was a primary teacher in Inner London for a decade before joining London Metropolitan University in the mid 1980s. He founded the Institute for Policy Studies in Education in 2000, and also is the University’s Academic Coordinator of Research degrees.
The Institute for Policy Studies in Education analyses and researches educational policy, with a particular emphasis on social justice and social inclusion.

Research covers a range of themes such as social class, ethnicity and gender, and also encompasses the rapid developments and changes in the practice and delivery of education. The aim is to have a high impact on user communities. Most work is part of specific projects, research and analysis for a range of governmental organisations, research councils, charitable foundations and others.

 

Alistair Ross is co-author of 'Black Teachers 2006', a report issued to all delegates at the recent LSBC Conference organised and held by Dianne Abbott MP on 9 September 2006. If you require a copy please advise ahead of the 29 September debate by emailing info@tiemo.co.uk

Alistair Ross’s research interests include children’s social and political learning, and how teachers can encourage this. He coordinates the Erasmus Thematic Network Children’s Identity and Citizenship in Europe (CiCe), which has linked some 100 European universities since 1998.

He is leading research comparing teacher education for multiculturalism in five European countries, and a project examining teacher’s understandings of competition and cooperation in Hungary, Slovenia and the UK. Other interests include teacher supply and retention, particularly in establishing an ethnically diverse teaching workforce representative of the community. He has also worked on access to higher education, policies for inclusion and exclusion in education.

He has written and published widely, including for children. His children’s book The Story of Mathematics (1984) was singled out as "the only English textbook to date that attempts to correct the racist inaccuracy about the origins of ‘our’ mathematics" (Klein, 1985): the following year Margaret Thatcher denounced "extremist teachers" who encouraged "learning anti-racist mathematics — whatever that might be" (Conservative Party Conference, 1987).