Promise Knight

PhD thesis: Community resources and parent-initiated volunteerism: a study of mixed learning environments and its impact on learning outcomes for low SES students.

My PhD focuses on School Composition Effects (SCE). This includes the impact of heterogeneous socioeconomic conditions on school outcomes. It involves how a broader distribution of economic and social characteristics could raise school effectiveness and improve learning outcomes for low socio-economic status (SES) students. My research investigates what effect mixed socioeconomic composition in school environments in the UK has on learning outcomes, social and mental wellbeing, and labour market trajectory for low SES students. It looks to uncover the extent to which heterogeneity within schools counterbalance neighbourhood effects such as deprivation. Parental networks and participation through parent teacher associations (PTA) further enhance peer, teacher and facilities effect. The project will employ parental school and home-based participation as a measure of parent-initiated volunteerism or involvement in order to further investigate the effects of the value of parental investment on learning gains for low SES students.

Who or what inspired you to pursue your research interests?

My main source of inspiration is the encouragement that I received from teachers and a mentor which raised my aspirations and, in turn, the effectiveness of my school experience. This meant that school, for me, did not just serve as an equaliser but was of maximising value. My journey from a low attaining comprehensive school in north west London to St Catharine's College, Cambridge in 2007 to read English at seventeen was statistically impossible but made possible through community resources and parent-initiated volunteerism. My journey was one riddled with overcrowded social housing, fuel poverty and beginning primary education with English as an additional language. I was abandoned to my own devises both socially and economically at the age of sixteen when I became estranged from my parents. I hope to meaningfully contribute to educational policy development to ensure that young people from similar backgrounds to mine are able to fully benefit from schools.