Geoff Whitty

Biography

Professor Geoff Whitty is a leading scholar in the sociology of education and an experienced institutional leader, who combines strong strategic vision with careful attention to detail. He became Director of the Institute of Education (IOE), University of London in September 2000, after teaching in schools and holding academic and senior management posts in higher education, and he is widely credited with taking the Institute to new heights in terms of its local, national and international standing. The IOE was ranked number one in the world in the discipline of education by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). He has been a specialist advisor to the House of Commons Education Committee and a past President of the British Educational Research Association and the College of Teachers. He has been a Board member of Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED) and Chair of the British Council’s Education and Training Committee. His many publications include Making Sense of Education Policy (Sage Publications 2002) and, with Sally Power, Tony Edwards and Valerie Wigfall, Education and the Middle Class (Open University Press 2003), which won the Society for Educational Studies education book prize in 2004. In 2014, he was one of only two scholars to have more than one publication included in the British Educational Research Association's list of 40 landmark studies that had had a significant impact on educational research and policy since the formation of that association in 1974. In 2009, he received the Lady Plowden Memorial Medal for outstanding services to education and in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2011 he was awarded a CBE for services to teacher education. Professor Whitty was a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Teachers College, Columbia University and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and Honorary Professor at Beijing Normal University. He has received Honorary Doctorates from the University of the West of England and the Hong Kong Institute of Education. Professor Geoff Whitty has been appointed UON’s Global Innovation Chair for Equity in Higher Education. In his role as Global Innovation Chair for Equity in Higher Education, Professor Whitty will be based in the School of Education, and will work with colleagues in the School as a research mentor and strategist in equity and education, and collaborate to build stronger international research links. His appointment will also provide important input into the ongoing development of the Centre of Excellence for Equity in Higher Education.

Research Interest

Sociology of Education