Tom Dobson

I am a former secondary school teacher and my research focuses on creative writing and, more broadly, creative ways of engaging young people in their education for mental wellbeing and social justice.

This includes: leading a transnational project focussing on the creative arts (https://www.arted-eu.org/); publishing fiction with under-represented groups of young people (https://www.storymakersco.com/the-press); and exploring the outcomes of student-driven, community-facing teaching and learning through project based learning.

My recent publications include:

Dobson, T. (2022) Developing 21st Century Skills for 11-19 Year Olds through Project-Based Learning and Youth Participatory Action Research: Policy Analysis and Literature Review. Available from: https://www.nextgenleaders.co.uk/the-research.

Dobson, T., and Stephenson, L. (2022) A trans-European perspective on how artists can support teachers, parents and carers to engage with young people in the creative arts. Children & Society. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/chso.12580

Dobson, J., Dobson, T. (2021) Empowering Student Voice in a Secondary School: Character Education through Project-Based Learning with Students as Teachers. Teacher Development. 25(2), pp.103-119. https://doi.org/10.1080/13664530.2020.1865442

Dobson, T., Stephenson, L. and De Arede, A. (2021) Writing a Novel with Roma Primary School Children: Tensions in Disrupting Aetonormativity. Children’s Literature in Education. 52, pp.511-527. Available online: DOI: 10.1007/s10583-020-09428-3.

Dobson, T., Stephenson, L. and De Arede, A. (2019). Disrupting aetonormativity: involving children in the writing of literature for publication. English in Education. Available online: https://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2019.1679622.

Dobson, T. and Stephenson, L. (2019) “I think it fits in”: Using Process Drama to Promote Agentic Writing with Primary School Children. Literacy. 53(2), pp.69-76. Available online from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/lit.12145.

Dobson, T. (2019) Story Makers Press: Disrupting Aetonormativity by Positioning Children as Authors. Story Makers Dialogues. 2(1). Available from: http://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/5355/.

Dobson, T. and Stephenson, L. (2017) Primary Pupils’ Creative Writing: Enacting Identities in a Community of Writers. Literacy. 51(3), pp.162-168. Available online: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/lit.12118.