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Professor of Early Childhood Studies, ECRC Research Centre Director

Telephone : +44 (0)20 8392 3881
Email : K.Brehony@roehampton.ac.uk
Department : Education
Office location : Grove House 219

Qualifications

BA, PhD. TCert

About

Kevin J. Brehony is Froebel Professor of Early Childhood Studies, Director of the Early Childhood Research Centre. He is a Trustee of the National Froebel Foundation, a member of the Froebel Research Committee and he is President of the International Froebel Society Previously he was Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Reading and prior to that he was Lecturer in Sociology of Education at Edge Hill College of Education.

He also taught for the Open University and began his career in education in the West Midlands. where he taught in three Primary Schools.

Research Interests

Research Interests: Education Policy, Public Policy, New Managerialism, School Governance, History of Education, Child-centered Education, Froebel, Montessori, Dewey, Social Theory, Ideologies, discourse, texts and textuality, historiography, historical sociology, social theory, qualitative methods.

Membership of Professional Bodies

British Sociological Association
History of Education Society
British Educational Research Association
The Society for Educational Studies

Publications

(2001) The origins of nursery education : Friedrich Froebel and the English system, London: Routledge.
Dr Kristen D. Nawrotzki (2011) From Weak Social Democracy to Hybridized Neo-liberalism: Early Childhood Education in Britain since 1945, , 237-56.
(2011) Stat och förskola i England och Wales, 1900-1918, , 23-48.
(2010) Froebel's religious beliefs: The transition from alternative to oppositional and its bearing on the diffusion of the kindergarten post 1848 , in Neumann, Karl Sauerbrey, Ulf. Winkler, Michael (Eds) Frobelpadagogik im Kontext der Moderne. Bildung Erziehung und soziales Handeln. Jena, IKS-Garamond, 73-92.
(2009) Lady Astor’s campaign for nursery schools in Britain 1930-1939: Attempting to valorize cultural capital in a male dominated political field , History of Education Quarterly , 49, 196-210.
(2009) Transforming theories of childhood and early childhood education: child study and the empirical assault on Froebelian rationalism, Paedagogica Historica, 45, 585 – 604.
Valkanova, Yordanka (2006) The 'Gifts' and 'Contributions'. Friedrich Froebel and Russian education from 1850 to 1920, History of Education, 35, 189-207.
Deem, Rosemary (2005) Challenging the post-Fordist/flexible organisation thesis. The case of reformed educational organisations, British Journal Sociology of Education, 26, 395-414.
Deem, R. (2005) Management as Ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in Higher Education, Oxford Review of Education, 31(2), 213–231.
(2005) Primary schooling under New Labour: The irresolvable contradiction of excellence and enjoyment, Oxford Review of Education, 312(1), 29-46.
(2004) A New Education for a New Era: creating International Fellowship through Conferences 1921-1938, Paedagogica Historica, 40(5&6), 733-755.
(2004) Education as a 'social function': sociology and social theory in the histories of Brian Simon, History of Education, 33(5), 545-558.
(2004) Froebel, Friedrich Wilhelm August (1782-1852). Encyclopedia of children and childhood: in history and society in P.S. Fass (Ed), New York, Macmillan Reference USA, 2, 374-5.
(2004) Montessori, Maria (1870-1952). Encyclopedia of children and childhood: in history and society in P.S. Fass (Ed), New York, Macmillan Reference USA, 2, 601-2.
(2004) Nursery Schools. Encyclopedia of children and childhood: in history and society in P.S. Fass (Ed), New York, Macmillan Reference USA, 2, 625-7.
(2004) Theories of play. Encyclopedia of children and childhood: in history and society in P.S. Fass (Ed), New York, Macmillan Reference USA, 3, 826-32.
(2003) A socially civilising influence? Play and the urban ‘degenerate’, Paedagogica Historica XXXIX, 1-2, 87-106.
Rosemary Deem (2003) 'Education policy', in Ellison, N. and Pearson, C. (Eds.) Developments in British social policy. London, Palgrave, 177-193.
Rosemary Deem (2003) New Labour and Education, Nick Ellison and Chris Pierson (eds), Developments in British Social Policy 2, London: Palgrave, 177-193.
(2003) The reception and obstacles to the implementation of the kindergarten in England 1850-1900, Bakker, N., van Crombrugge, H. and Rietveld-van Wingerden, M (eds) Naar duits model: De receptie van Duitse pedagogische idealen uit de vroege negentiende eeuw (Jaarboek voor de geschiedenis van opvoeding en onderwijs) Assen, van Gorcum, 21-42.
(2002) Researching the ‘Grammar of Schooling’: an historical view, European Educational Research Journal, 1:1, 178-189.
(2001) Developments in the Sociology of Education since 1950: From structural functionalism to “policy sociology, Developments in Sociology, Eds. R. G. Burgess and A. Murcott, London: Prentice Hall, 165-84.
(2001) From the particular to the general, the continuous to the discontinuous: progressive education revisited, History of Education, 30: 5, 413-432.
(2000) Montessori, individual work and individuality in the elementary school classroom, History of Education, 29, 2, pp. 115-128.
2000) 'Revising Froebel: English revisionist Froebelians and the schooling of the urban poor', in Hilton, M. and Hirsch, P. (Eds.) Practical Visionaries: Women, Education and Social Progress 1790-1930, London, Addison, Wesley, Longman, 183-199.
(2000) 'The kindergarten in England 1851-1918', in Wollons, R. (ed) Kindergartens and Cultures: the global diffusion of an idea. Yale, Yale University Press, 59-86.
(1999) 'Even far distant Japan' is 'showing an interest': the Froebelian movement's turn to Sloyd, History of Education, 27, 3, pp.279-295.
(2008) The genesis and disappearance of Homer Lane's Little Commonwealth: A Weberian analysis, in Göhlich, M., Hopf, C. & Tröhler, D. (Eds.) Persistenz und Verschwinden. / Persistence and Disappearance: Pädagogische Organisationen im historischen Kontext. / Educational Organizations in their historical Contexts Wiesbaden, VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften., 237-253.

Cutler, T. and Waine, B (2007) A New Epoch of Individualisation? Problems with the ‘Personalisation’ of Public Sector Services, Public Administration,, 85, 847-855.
(2006) Early Years Education: some Froebelian Contributions , History of Education, 35, 167-172.
(2006) Representations of Socialist educational experiments in the 1920s and 1930s:, in Hofstetter, Rita and Schneuwly (Ed) Passion, fusion, tension. New Education and Educational sciences - Education nouvelle et Sciences de l'éducation (end 19th-middle 20th century - fin 19e-milieu 20e siècle. Bern, Peter Lang, 271-304.
(2006) The Froebel movement in England 1850-1911: texts, readings and readers, in Heiland, Helmut, Gebel, Michael and Neumann, Karl (Eds) Perspektiven der Fröbelforschung, Wurzburg, Königshausen & Neumann, 49-64.