Alice Tawell is an ESRC funded Doctoral Student, co-supervised across the Department of Education and Centre for Criminology at the University of Oxford.

Supervisors: Professor Harry Daniels and Dr Rachel Condry.

Alice’s research focuses broadly on the enactment of school exclusion policy in England.

Prior to starting her Doctoral studies, Alice gained a BSc in Sociology from the University of Bath and an MSc in Education (Research Training) from the University of Oxford.

As part of her undergraduate degree, Alice undertook a placement year working with Professor Kathy Sylva in the Families, Effective Learning and Literacy Research Group at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. After completing her degree, Alice returned to the department and has worked as a Research Officer on a number of different research projects since 2014. Most recently Alice has worked as part of the Excluded Lives Research Team on two projects exploring exclusion from school from a multidisciplinary perspective. In 2017 she was awarded a Seed-corn Small Grant Award to co-lead a pilot project exploring student collaborative networks with Hau Ming Tse. Alice also co-convenes the Qualitative Methods Hub in the department.

Outside of the department, Alice has sat on the Advisory Board for the Children Missing Education research project (2016-2017) at the National Children’s Bureau (NCB) and has been a member of the NCB Partnership for Well Being and Mental Health in Schools since 2016. She also sits on the Transparency on Exclusions Steering Group.

In 2017 Alice received funding from the Grand Union Doctoral Training Partnership placement scheme to conduct a Knowledge Exchange Internship with the Early Years Analysis and Research Unit at the Department for Education, and in 2018 Alice was elected the Co-President of the Grand Union ESRC Scholar’s Association, representing ESRC students from the University of Oxford, Brunel and The Open University.

Research

Journal articles
  • TAWELL, A., & Porter, J. (n.d.). At-risk or a risk? SENCOs’ conceptualisations of vulnerability and risk in relation to school exclusion. Oxford Review of Education.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2024.2392170

  • Tawell, A. (2023). Enacting national school exclusion policy at the local level in England: is it black and white?. International Journal of Inclusive Education.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13603116.2023.2266746https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d2b46ebe-aa31-4b60-b491-58e548027bd5

  • Tawell, A., & McCluskey, G. (2021). Utilising Bacchi’s what’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach to analyse national school exclusion policy in England and Scotland: a worked example. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 45(2), 137-149.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/1743727x.2021.1976750https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:9534211b-b37d-4f88-9d9c-a75bba8f041b

  • Thompson, I., Tawell, A., & Daniels, H. (2021). Excluded lives special issue. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 26(1), 1-2.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2021.1903172https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:e678816f-0818-4c94-8e6c-71d77c857d71

  • Thompson, I., Tawell, A., & Daniels, H. (2021). Conflicts in professional concern and the exclusion of pupils with SEMH in England. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 26(1), 31-45.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2021.1898769https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d2117944-6d65-4abb-9d22-ff06e3e3dba2

  • Daniels, H., Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2019). Practices of exclusion in cultures of inclusive schooling in the United Kingdom. Revista Publicaciones, 49(3), 23-36.
    https://doi.org/10.30827/publicaciones.v49i3.11402https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:d8789ac3-055e-4dbc-aabc-869bc28fe169

  • McCluskey, G., Cole, T., Daniels, H., Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2019). Exclusion from school in Scotland and across the UK: Contrasts and questions. British Educational Research Journal, 45(6), 1140-1159.
    https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3555https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0f42312-bfb0-442d-8eda-88ee49d4273a

  • Cole, T., McCluskey, G., Daniels, H., Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2019). Factors associated with high and low levels of school exclusions: comparing the English and wider UK experience. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 24(4), 374-390.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2019.1628340https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a6f88091-75a8-4422-9d23-09096852aaf6

  • Daniels, H., Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2019). After Warnock: the effects of perverse incentives in policies in England for students with Special Educational Needs. Frontiers in Education, 4.
    https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2019.00036https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:89d1332f-b1c0-439d-9646-0eb19d6bd882

  • Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2017). Becoming other: social and emotional development through the creative arts for young people with behavioural difficulties. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 22(1), 18-34.
    https://doi.org/10.1080/13632752.2017.1287342https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:6054444d-cd9a-4a93-8a11-cd913480162b

  • McCluskey, G., Duffy, G., Power, S., Robinson, G., Tawell, A., Taylor, A., Templeton, M., & Thompson, I. (n.d.). School exclusion policies across the UK: convergence and divergence. Oxford Review of Education.
    https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:90a328c5-8bca-463c-ad11-b51e550b05fe

  • Reports
  • Power, S., Bridgeman, J., Duffy, G., McCluskey, G., Tawell, A., & Taylor, A. (2024). The varied landscape of alternative education provision in the UK: a home international comparison (I. Thompson, Ed.). Department of Education, University of Oxford.
    https://doi.org/10.5287/ora-0z1zoy0kmhttps://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b9453bd9-6843-4e32-8842-035e3d9a5b84

  • Melhuish, E., Ereky-Stevens, K., Petrogiannis, K., Ariescu, A., Penderi, E., Rentzou, K., Tawell, A., Slot, P., Broekhuizen, M., & Leserman, P. (2015). A review of research on the effects of early childhood education and care (ECEC) on child development. In Curriculum Quality Analysis and Impact Review of European Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC). CARE - European Early Childhood Education and Care.
    https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:bb919f6f-cd43-42d8-89ff-da525dc63554

  • Tawell, A., Thompson, I., Daniels, H., & al., E. (2015). Being Other: The Effectiveness of Arts Based Approaches in Engaging with Disaffected Young People. In Oxford University Department of Education. Oxford University Department of Education.
    https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:54de1398-fcd3-4849-b5f0-0799da9cd1d7

  • Funded Research Projects

    • Student collaborative networks: exploring social and spatial dynamics in learning environments
      January-May 2017