Dr Francesca Peruzzo

• PhD Sociology of Education (UCL – Institute of Education, London)
• MA Work, Organisations, and Informative Systems (University of Trento, Italy)
• LLP Erasmus Programme MA level (Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, Spain)
• BA Sociology (University of Trento, Italy)

Francesca Peruzzo is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow leading the project Diversifying Inclusion and Growth: Inspiring Technologies for Accessible Learning (DIGITAL) in the time of Coronavirus, researching inclusive technologies and digital accessibilities during and beyond the Covid-19 pandemic in UK, Italy, Chile, Malaysia, US and Australia. Currently, she is conducting a parallel research project on disabled students’ activism and student unions in the UK higher education.

Prior to this project she was affiliated with the University of Naples – Federico II as a on the EU-funded project ‘Social Dialogue and Industrial Relations in Education: the challenges of Multi-level Governance and Privatisation in Europe’, where she was Research Lead on Policy Network Analysis and Network Ethnography Italian and European Levels.

She completed her doctoral studies at the UCL Institute of Education with a research that merged a sociological perspective and Foucauldian tools to challenge ableism in Italian higher education, investigating the production of disability discourses, practices and subjectivities, and their implications for inclusive policies and practices and equity in opportunities in academic contexts.

Former disabled student assistant, her current interests lie in disabled students’ activism in higher education, accessible and inclusive technologies, digital network ethnography, governmentality studies and policy privatisation in education.

Associate Lecturer LM Inclusion:  Individual and Group Differences, School of Education

Francesca’s research interests centre on processes of critical inclusion and exclusion in education, local and global social inequalities and policy privatisation, and ableism in education.

Her current research interests are: 

• Critical digital pedagogies in education
• Policy networks and global education policy
• Governmentality and education subjectivities
• Processes of ableism and reproduction of disability in education
• Disability activism in higher education 

Francesca has conducted extensive research with disabled students in England and Italy, connecting education and social policy with processes of inclusion and exclusion and social inequities.

Her current research project DIGITAL in the time of Coronavirus is funded by the YTL Foundation and investigates new forms of inclusive teaching and learning practices through digital and non-digital technologies in education in UK, Chile, US, Australia, Italy and Malaysia.

Prior to this she worked with ETUCE (Education International) on a EU-funded project on policy networks and effects of privatisation in education on social dialogue and industrial relations in Italy, Sweden, Belgium and Poland.

Francesca is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE)

She is also a member of:

• the Editorial Board of ALTER (European Society for Disability Research)
• the Editorial Board of the Italian Journal of Disability Studies
• the Global network Programs and Outreach Burton Blatt Institute Syracuse University, NY.
• the British Sociological Association