School of Education Research Staff Profile

Dr Neil Duncan

Name	Dr Neil Duncan
Title	Senior Lecturer, Special Needs and Inclusion Studies
Research group	Cluster coordinator: RiHE cluster Member: Education for Social Inclusion and Social Justice
Tel	01902 32 3078
E-mail	N.Duncan@wlv.ac.uk

Developmental work and research activity

Dr Neil Duncan’s research has two main strands: field and theoretical research into bullying and gender identity in high schools, and assessment and feedback design in higher education. His work on bullying is ground-breaking in that it falls outside the better-defined theoretical camps of sexual harassment and educational psychology, and has attracted international interest from Finland, Australia and the US, and he now collaborates on projects with colleagues there and Japan. He has developed the first undergraduate module focused on bullying and critiques of current methodology.

Neil has been a contributor to TV programmes in Australia and the UK, appearing and advising on homophobic bullying. Currently he is engaged in writing a co-edited book for the world market to add to his publications. Neil also has research interests in teaching and learning in HE, particularly in the area of student assessment and feedback. He is a reviewer for the International Journal of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and manages a cross-University research cluster from its base in CEDARE on Research in Higher Education.

Key and recent publications and materials developed

Duncan N & Owens L (Under review) ‘Social power and heteronormativity: girls’ constructions of popularity in two very different schools’ Children and Society. Special Edition on Bullying.
Duncan N (In press, for publication September 2010) ‘The role of the school in reducing bullying’ In Richards G & Armstrong F (Eds) Teaching and Learning in Diverse and Inclusive Classrooms. London, Routledge.
Owens L & Duncan N (2009) ‘They might not like you but everyone knows you’: Popularity among teenage girls. The Journal of Student Wellbeing, 3(1) 14-39.
Rivers I, Duncan N & Besag V (2007) Bullying: A handbook for educators and parents. Connecticut, Greenwood.
Duncan N (2007) ‘Bullying in school, or bullying schools?’ In G Richards and F Armstrong (Eds) Key issues for classroom assistants working in diverse and inclusive classroom. London, Routledge.
Duncan N (2007) Feedforward: Improving students' use of tutors' comments, Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, Vol 32 (3).
Duncan N (2007) Do that and I’ll raise your grade, Innovative module design and recursive feedback, Teaching in Higher Education, Vol 12 (4), 437 - 445.
Duncan N (2006) Girls, popularity and power: female identity in high school, ISRA.
Duncan N (2004) It's important to be nice, but nicer to be important: girls, popularity and sexual competition. Sex education, July (4) 2, pp. 137-152.
Duncan N (2003) Teaching strategies for homophobia and misogyny. In: I. Rivers (ed.) Safe for All: Health Development Agency Guidance for Schools. London, HMSO.
Duncan N (2003) ‘Awkward Customers? Parents and provision for special educational needs’, Disability and Society, 18 (3) pp, 341-356
Duncan N (1999) Sexual bullying: gender conflict in pupil culture, London: Routledge

Recent conference papers

Duncan N (2009) ‘Using disability models to understand how schools can bully children’ Paper presented at the Inter-disciplinary net conference on bullying, Salzburg, November, 2009.
Prowse S & Duncan N (2009) ‘A challenge to the tyranny of the academic essay’ Paper presented at ECER, Vienna, September 2009.
Duncan N and Prowse S (2007) ‘Moving targets: institutional construction of disability in higher education’ Paper presented at ECER, Ghent, September 2007
Duncan N & Prowse S (2006) ‘Do that and I’ll raise your grade’ Innovative module design and recursive feedback. Paper presented at BERA, University of Warwick, September 2006.
Duncan N (2006) ‘Homophobia, misogyny and school bullying’. Paper presented at BERA, University of Warwick, September 2006
Duncan N (2005) ‘Socio-cultural perspectives on bullying in schools’ paper presented to British Psychological Society anti-bullying seminar, Goldsmiths College, University of London, September 2005
Duncan, N, (2005) ‘Sexual bullying in schools: defining and tackling the problem’ Workshop for Womankind AntiBullying Group, Amnesty International Building, London, November 2005.

Recent development and research projects

Neil Duncan’s portfolio of research is highly diverse. He is currently working on new methodologies for enquiry into bullying, collaborating with Larry Owens of Flinders University, Adelaide. Neil also recently undertook a research project on Higher Education's impact on the identity of disabled students and presented a paper on the findings at the ECER conference in Ghent, Belgium in 2007. Current research is focusing on a nonverbal and nonliteral assessment of student work in university, and a theoretical study of disability models’ use in understanding bullying. Neil is also leading a research project funded by Aimhigher into improving the success of care-leavers coming into HE.