About Jenny and Nicola

Jenny KeatingJenny Keating was one of the two post-doctoral research fellows who worked on the History in Education Project, concentrating on the period 1900 to the 1960s. She also worked with Professor Sir David Cannadine on the initial scoping study for the Project. In 2005 she completed a part time DPhil at the University of Sussex which was published as A Child for Keeps: the History of Adoption in England 1918-45 (Palgrave Macmillan 2009). Before returning to England in 1997, Jenny lived in Melbourne, Australia where she did an MA in Public History at Monash University and worked as a commissioned historian. She wrote reports and books for the Victorian state government and local authorities including a book on the history of drought, The Drought Walked Through: A History of Water Shortage in Victoria (Dept of Water Resources, Victoria 1992), and another on the history of a central Melbourne park which was controversially soon to host the Australian Grand Prix – People’s Playground: A History of the Albert Park, (Chandos Publishing 1996, co-authored with Jill Barnard). Jenny also worked as a curator at the Museum of Victoria, historian at the State Library of Victoria, and before moving to Melbourne as a teacher, advice worker and journalist. She has published a number of articles in recent years on both history and citizenship teaching, and on adoption. She is currently a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Historical Research and can be contacted at jenny.keating@sas.ac.uk.

 

Nicola SheldonNicola Sheldon worked as a Post-doctoral Research Fellow from 2009-11 on the History in Education Project to create a ‘history of history teaching’ since 1900. This incorporates an oral history project working with teachers and former pupils, as well as curriculum innovators and those influential in the formation of the National Curriculum for history. She spent 16 years working in 16-19 education, teaching A level history and politics at several sixth form colleges before completing her MSc and DPhil at Oxford University from 2003-7. Her initial research interests focused on truancy and changing policies for dealing with it, raising of the school leaving age and school-family relationships. She has published articles on the web for History and Policy on these themes as well as journal articles for History of Education Researcher , History of Education (Nov. 2007) and Local Population Studies (Autumn 2009). More recently, she has moved into study of the history of child care institutions from 1870-1930 with an article in History of Education (Nov. 2009). Further work is forthcoming in two edited volumes due to be published in 2012.  Since September 2011, she has been working in teacher training for the Institute of Education. Her contact details are: Dr Nicola Sheldon, Teach First Professional Tutor, Institute of Education, Faculty of Children and Learning, c/o Room 518, 20 Bedford Way, London WC1H 0AL. Email: n.sheldon@ioe.ac.uk