Deborah Outhwaite is an educator, charity leader, and doctoral supervisor. Deb gained her MSc in European Social Policy from LSE in 1997 and gained her professional doctorate in 2017, which explored the Leadership challenges of the International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Programme in English schools. A ‘pracademic’, Deb has always held both practitioner and academic roles in education as she values the importance of the link between theory and practice. Deb’s experience and expertise extends to 30 years across secondary; FE; and HE sectors, including leading a Master’s programme at the University of Warwick. Since 2018, Deb has run an education charity that trains teachers and provides STEM professional development to educators. She is also Director of Studies in the Centre of Higher Education Studies (CHES), at the University of Liverpool, from where she supervises professional doctorates with senior education leaders from around the globe, including Japan; Hong Kong; China; Canada and the UAE.
She is Chair of the Learned Society https://www.belmas.org.uk/ 2023-2026, where she has co-convened the Leadership Preparation and Development Research Interest Group since 2015. Over the course of her career, Deb has published more than 60 papers, book chapters, and textbooks. She is a Member of School Trust in Hertfordshire https://www.hockerill.com/ that delivers the International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Programme. She is a Fellow of https://chartered.college/, Fellow of https://www.thersa.org/, Fellow of CollectivED | Research | Leeds Beckett University, and Fellow of the instituteforequity.ac.uk. She sits on the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for the Teaching Profession, has held many External Examiner roles and is a Regional Lead for the campaigning group https://womened.com/.
Deb is interested in genuine knowledge exchange - research that includes the perspectives of teachers and leaders, helping to generate agency, and be of use in education policy.
Selected publications
Outhwaite, D, and Simon, C. (2023) Leadership and Management in Education Studies: Introducing Key Concepts of Theory and Practice, Oxon: Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Leadership-and-Management-for-Education-Studies-Introducing-Key-Concepts/Outhwaite-Simon/p/book/9781032343013
Gibson, M. and Outhwaite, D. (2021), ‘MATification: plurality, turbulence and effective school governance in England at times of crises’, Management in Education, Special Edition in Governance and Governing, November 2021: https://doi.org/10.1177/08920206211051473
Outhwaite, D. and Soni, D. (2019), ‘The role of a Specialist Leader of Education in England: position, timing, challenges and opportunities’, In Leading in Change: Implications of School Diversification for School Leader Preparation in England and the United States, Storey, V.A. (Ed), University of Central Florida, Information Age Publishing, Inc. https://www.infoagepub.com/products/Leading-in-Change
Outhwaite, D. and Ferri, G. (2017), ‘Critical Reflections on Modern Elite Formation and Social Differentiation in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme in England’, Oxford Review of Education, Special Issue ‘New Educational Researchers in the UK’, 43:4, 402-416 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03054985.2017.1329719