Ms Anna Pilson

Ms Anna Pilson

School of Education
Lecturer in Education of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments

Contact details

Address
Department of Disability Inclusion and Special Needs
School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Anna is Lecturer in Education of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments in the Department for Disability, Inclusion and Special Needs, School of Education.

The department has the largest course in the UK for providing training for qualified teachers who wish to gain the Mandatory Qualification for Teacher of Children with Vision Impairments (MQVI), and Anna is Programme Co-ordinator.

Anna is a member of the Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching And Research (VICTAR) (birmingham.ac.uk). Her research interests include: Critical Disability Studies, Participatory Action Research, Autoethnography, Vision Impairment, Teacher Education, Conceptualisations of Voice.

Qualifications

  • PhD in Education, (ESRC-funded), University of Durham (2023)
  • PGCert Research Methods (2019)
  • PGDip Mandatory Qualification for Teachers of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments, University of Birmingham (2014)
  • MA Education, University of Durham (2012)
  • PGCE QTS Secondary History, University of Durham (2005)
  • BA (Hons) History, University of Liverpool (2002)

Biography

Anna joined the Department for Disability, Inclusion and Special Needs as Lecturer in Education of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments in January 2022, following a decade working as a Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments (QTVI).

She is Programme Co-ordinator for the Mandatory Qualification for Teachers of Children and Young People with Vision Impairments. This course (approved by the National College for Teaching and Leadership) is the largest of its kind in the UK.

Anna is also currently undertaking her doctorate at the University of Durham, School of Education, where her ESRC-funded research involves working with visually impaired young people in a collaborative autoethnographic project. She is interested in conceptualisations of ‘voice’ in educational policy, practice and research, how educators and researchers can best centre the ‘voices’ of visually impaired young people in their practice, and, most importantly, how visually impaired young people can direct the impact of their own ‘voice’.

Anna’s research is concerned with challenging the oppressive and marginalising forces of dis/ableism in education and society. Her research interests include: Critical Disability Studies, Participatory Action Research, Conceptualisations of Voice, Autoethnography, Vision Impairment, Teacher Education.

She is a member of the Vision Impairment Centre for Teaching And Research (VICTAR) (birmingham.ac.uk), an affiliate member of the University of Sheffield iHuman multidisciplinary research collective, and works in an advisory capacity for the Standards and Testing Agency, Department of Education.

Teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Anna is not currently undertaking supervision activities.

Research

Research interests:

  • Critical Disability Studies
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Autoethnography
  • Vision Impairment

Current projects:

Doctoral research utilising collaborative autoethnography with visually impaired children and young people (ESRC-funded via NINE DTP).

Other activities

  • Affiliate member of iHuman research collective, University of Sheffield. 2019-present.
  • Inclusion Expert role, Standards and Testing Agency, Department for Education. 2019-present.
  • Member of British Sociological Association and British Educational Research Association. 2018-present.

Publications

Journal articles:

Olsen, J., & Pilson, A., (2022). Developing Understandings of Disability through a Constructivist Paradigm: Identifying, overcoming (and embedding) Crip-Dissonance. Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research, 24(1), 15–28. DOI: https://doi.org/10.16993/sjdr.843

Rutter, N., Hasan, E., Pilson, A., Yeo, E. (2021), “It’s the end of the PhD as we know it, and we feel fine... Because everything is fucked anyway”: Utilising feminist collaborative autoethnography to navigate global crises. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 1-12. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1177/16094069211019595

Pilson, A. (2021), ‘We’re on their side, aren’t we?’ Exploring Qualified Teacher of Children and Young People with Vision Impairment (QTVI) views on the role of supporting the emotional well-being of visually impaired children, British Journal of Visual Impairment. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1177%2F0264619620984218  

Pilson, A. (2019). [Review] ‘Free your mind’ – and your research. entanglements, 2(2): 115-121. [Review] ‘Free your mind’ – and your research | entanglements (entanglementsjournal.org). ISSN 2516-5860.

Book Chapters:

Pilson, A. (2021), “Inclusive education and social justice in the post-Covid world”. In: Goodley, D. & Martin, P. (eds.) Being Human during Covid-19. Bristol: Bristol University Press. (In press).

Pilson, A. (2020), “Critical Disability Studies and Participatory Action Research: Antidotes to educational research’s inherent ‘othering’?” In: Goodley, D., Runswick-Cole, K., & Liddiard, K. (eds.), Interventions in Disabled Childhood Studies Sheffield: iHuman Press. pp. 49-54. Available online: Interventions in Disabled Childhood Studies.

View all publications in research portal