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Published on: 3/4/2006
Last Visited: 10/9/2006
Dr.Martin Ashley
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Martin Ashley
Dr. Martin Ashley is currently a Principal Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at UWE Bristol.He holds a PhD degree in values and actions, an MPhil in attachment behaviour and peer relations, a BEd., the PGCertHE and the licentiate diploma of Trinity College of Music.He is a licentiate member of the Higher Education Academy.Dr Ashley's work is based in the Faculty of Education but his interests in social science are extended to wider society.He publishes in academic and non-academic journals, and his work on boys and singing has resulted in several media reports and radio interviews.
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Dr Ashley has published significantly in the area of boys and singing and continues to research the gender imbalance in singing and other performing arts, including dance.He is particularly interested in the intimate relationship between the voice and the public and private social self, including the ways in which young males experience the aesthetic or "spiritual".
Children's spirituality and aesthetics
Dr Ashley's interest in children's spirituality and aesthetics extends to nature and the environment.The ideas were developed for the PhD thesis, which demonstrated the extent to which children and young people treated the natural world as a consumer want, whilst espousing the rhetoric of sustainability and environmentalism.Post-doctoral work has considered the similarity between music and the natural world as exemplifications of spiritual qualities that potentially transcend economic pricing.
Comparative education and pedagogies for the middle years
Dr Ashley's broad interest in pedagogy draws on contrasting notions of curriculum and child development.The fundamental issue identified in his original MPhil study was the conflict between the social needs of the child and the requirements of pre-specified curricula.The degree to which curriculum design should be driven by knowledge and understanding of child development has become increasingly central to this area of interest.Dr Ashley's own school teaching experience included maintained primary and middle schools as well as contrasting types of independent school, and this has led naturally to the adoption of a comparative framework for the analysis of pedagogy.Dr Ashley was co-author of a recent DfES funded study of Steiner schools in England, where he carried out detailed case studies of seven of the twenty three Steiner schools, focussing particularly on the relationship between Steiner Waldorf pedagogy and the anthroposophical view of child development.
Education for Sustainable Development and Outdoor Education, Spirituality and the Environment.
For his PhD, Dr Ashley examined value as a reason for action in relation to the environment.Theoretical underpinning of post-doctoral work builds upon identification of the spiritual and economic dimensions of value.Dr Ashley continues to publish on values, sustainability and the environment and has developed this dimension of his work principally as an interest in the maturation of judgement and the acquisition of wisdom.
Participation in Recent and On-going Research Projects
Current work is focussed around a Youth Music funded evaluation of a choral outreach programme, Bristol Voices, developed in collaboration with Bristol Cathedral and Bristol City Council.A parallel evaluation of arts enrichment programme in an Education Action Zone, funded by Bristol City Council is also underway, and this is to be extended into a retrospective study of the enduring effects of the Hartcliffe Boys Dance Company.In both cases, Dr Ashley has brought to bear his interest in gender, masculinity, boys and singing.The gendered nature of singing is a key interest and work has centred on the social perception of the high voice.Through membership of the EPSRC funded NetVoTech network, Dr Ashley is examining the potential of new technology to interest boys in vocal performance.
The Steiner Schools in England project was a DfES funded study undertaken by Professor Philip Woods, Dr Martin Ashley and Dr Glenys Woods.
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