Alice Tawell

Researcher

alice.tawell@education.ox.ac.uk

About me

Alice is a Research Officer at the Rees Centre.

Her main research areas include:
1. School exclusion
2. Equity, inclusion, and belonging in education
3. Policy sociology
4. Collaboration, and multi-agency working

Currently, Alice is Researcher Co-Investigator on the John Fell funded project ‘The enactment of part-time timetables in English schools.’ Before this, Alice was Co-Lead on the ‘Belonging in education: co-designing an evidence-informed model of practice’ project (SGD Impact Fund) and helped establish the Belonging in Education Research Network. Alice also recently led on the final report for the Department for Education funded ‘Evaluation of the extension of virtual school heads’ duties to children with a social worker’ and was Co-Investigator and Research Officer on the ESRC-funded project ‘The political economies of school exclusion and their consequences’.

Alice teaches on the MSc module: The Implementation of the Rights of Children and is a member of the Editorial Board for the Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Journal.

Alice holds a DPhil in Education from the University of Oxford (ESRC Scholar) where she was co-supervised across the Department of Education and Centre for Criminology. Her thesis explored the enactment of national school exclusion policy at the local level in England through an embedded single-case study. Alice also holds a MSc in Education (Research Training) from the University of Oxford (ESRC Scholar), and a BSc (Hons) in Sociology from the University of Bath.

Research

Book chapters

TAWELL, A., Emery, H., McCluskey, G., & THOMPSON, I. (2026). Policy Formation in England and Scotland: Opportunities and Challenges for Academic Researchers Navigating the Pathways to Policy Impact. In Opportunities and Challenges for Policy Advice and Policy Making in Education Future Possibilities. Bloomsbury Academic.
Daniels, H., Thompson, I., & Tawell, A. (2023). Excluded Lives. In Agency and Transformation (pp. 139-161). Cambridge University Press (CUP).
Thompson, I., Tawell, A., & Daniels, H. (2022). School Influences on Attendance and Special Educational Needs. In Mental Health and Attendance at School (pp. 130-144). Cambridge University Press (CUP).

Conference papers

Inal, A., Kalogianni, O., Osorio Saez, E., Rotar, O., Tawell, A., Saghy, E., Yang, Z., Voisey, C., & Kerr, D. (2019). Technology matters: Proceedings of the 2018 STORIES conference. STORIES Conference, 1-62.
Al-Shabibi, I., Chen, L., Sommerhoff, D., Cheung, A., Edwards, T., Froehlig, C., Hindle, E., Jannah, M., Higgins, S., Liu, X., Moffat, K., Mulvey, N., Muniandy, K., Shao, X., Witayarat, N., & Zhang, J. (2017). Doing Education Differently: Proceedings of the 2017 STORIES Conference. In K. Sahan, M. Melsen, A. Tawell, K. Newell, K. Wortmann, & N. Mukhi (Eds.), STORIES 2017 Conference: Doing Education Differently: Proceedings of the 2017 STORIES Conference (pp. 1-126). Oxford: STORIES Conference.
Tawell, A., Thompson, I., Daniels, H., & Rubtsova, O. (2016). Being Other: Transforming the social situation of development through drama. The Materials of the International Symposium "Scientific School of Vygotsky: Traditions & Innovations" 27-28th June 2016, Moscow. Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, 324-330.

Journal articles

Power, S., Bridgeman, J., Duffy, G., McCluskey, G., Tawell, A., & Taylor, A. (2025). Outsourcing Trouble: A Home International Comparison of Alternative Provision Across the UK. British Journal of Educational Studies, 73(4), 429-448.
Porter, J., & Tawell, A. (2024). At-risk or a risk? SENCOs’ conceptualisations of vulnerability and risk in relation to school exclusion. Oxford Review of Education, 50(6), 834-853.
Zhang, K., Tawell, A., & Evans-Lacko, S. (2024). The costs of school exclusion: a case study analysis of England, Wales and Scotland. Oxford Review of Education, 50(6), 777-797.
McCluskey, G., Duffy, G., Power, S., Robinson, G., Tawell, A., Taylor, A., Templeton, M., & Thompson, I. (2024). School exclusion policies across the UK: convergence and divergence. Oxford Review of Education, 50(6), 760-776.
Tawell, A. (2023). Enacting national school exclusion policy at the local level in England: is it black and white? International Journal of Inclusive Education, 29(5), 769-787.
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.
Thompson, I., Tawell, A., & Daniels, H. (2021). Excluded lives special issue. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties, 26(1), 1-2.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

Reports

Tawell, A., Brown, A., Rees, A., Moreno Silva, T., Froustis, E., Luke, N., Selwyn, J., Duckworth, K., & Feinstein, L. (2025). Evaluation of the extension of virtual school heads’ duties to children with a social worker: final report. Department for Education.
Emery, H., Tawell, A., & Thompson, I. (2025). Equity by design: ‘Our children, our responsibility’: policy and practice recommendations for developing school inclusion and reducing school exclusion in England. Excluded Lives, Department of Education, University of Oxford.
Porter, J., Robinson, G., Tawell, A., & Taylor, A. (2025). Staff conceptualisations of risk and vulnerability and young people at risk of exclusion: comparisons within the UK (I. Thompson, Ed.). Department of Education, University of Oxford.
Porter, J., Bridgeman, J., Robinson, G., Tawell, A., & Taylor, A. (2025). Trajectories of young people at risk of exclusion across the UK. Excluded Lives, Department of Education, University of Oxford.
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.
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.
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.

Research Projects

The enactment of part-time timetables in English schools

Role: Co-Investigator

Funder: John Fell Fund

Date: 2026-2027
Belonging in education: co-designing an evidence-informed model of practice

Role: Principal Investigator

Funder: University of Oxford’s ESRC Impact Acceleration Account. Grant reference ES/X004511/1

Date: 2025-2026
Research Collaboration in Education

Role: Co-Investigator

Funder: Department of Education, Research Culture Grant

Date: 2024-2026
Cultural artefacts and belonging: A case study of displaced and refugee young people and families in Ukraine

Role: Research Officer

Funder: AHRC

Date: 2021-2022
Acting Outside the Box

Role: Co-Investigator

Funder: Humanities Cultural Funding

Date: 2020-2020
Excluded Lives

Role: Co-Investigator

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)

Date: 2019-2023
Disparities in rates of permanent exclusion from school across the UK

Role: Co-Investigator

Funder: John Fell Fund

Date: 2017-2018
Research Collaboration in Education

Funder: Department of Education Research Culture Grant

2024-2026
The political economies of school exclusion and their consequences

Funder: Economic and Social Research Council

2019-2024
Lessons from Violence Reduction Units for school exclusion after Covid-19

Funder: Research and Public Policy Partnership Scheme, University of Oxford

2021
Acting outside the box

Funder: Humanities Cultural Programme Project Fund

2020 – 2021
Student collaborative networks: Exploring social and spatial dynamics in learning environments

Funder: Department of Education Small Grant Award

2017
An interdisciplinary view of permanent disciplinary exclusion in Oxfordshire

Funder: John Fell Fund

2016-2017