Professor Penny Jane Burke

Penny Jane Burke is Professor of Education at University of Roehampton, London, where she is co-Founder and Director of the Paulo Freire Institute-UK (PFI-UK). Previously she was Professor of Education at the University of Sussex and Reader of Education, Head of Educational Foundations and Policy Studies, Chair of Widening Participation and Course Leader of the MA in Higher and Professional Education at the Institute of Education, University of London.

Following her first career as a ballet dancer, she returned to study via an Access course, becoming passionate about creating opportunities for women’s access to further and higher education. In 1998, she was awarded the Cosmopolitan Woman of Achievement Award in Education. Dedicated to creating spaces for dialogue across theory and practice, she designed the innovative course ‘Widening Participation: Policy and Practice’, underpinned by Freirean and feminist concepts of praxis. Penny’s first book, Accessing Education effectively widening participation (2002), draws on her ESRC-funded doctoral research of women mature students’ experiences of accessing lifelong learning opportunities. Her co-authored book Reconceptualising Lifelong Learning: Feminist Interventions (Burke and Jackson, 2007) was nominated for the 2008 Cyril O. Houle World Award for Outstanding Literature in Adult Education. Routledge published her sole-authored book The Right to Higher Education: Beyond Widening Participation (2012).

Penny was a recipient of the Higher Education Academy’s prestigious National Teaching Fellowship award in 2008 and is the Access and Widening Participation Network Leader for the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE). She is a member of SRHE’s Governing Council and a member of the select Scientific Committee of Euredocs. She is an Executive Editor ofTeaching in Higher Education, a member of the editorial board of Gender and Education, a member of SRHE Publications Committee and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College.

Penny is particularly dedicated to developing methodological and pedagogical frameworks that support critical understanding of equity and social justice in the field of higher education studies. Her current and recent research includes: ‘Pedagogic Stratification and the Changing Landscape of Higher Education (HEA-funded); ‘Formations of Gender and Higher Education Pedagogies’ (HEA-funded); ‘Transitions to Masters Level Study’ (HEA-funded); ‘Educational Access for All’ (EU-funded); ‘Men Returning to Study’ (ESRC-funded) and ‘Art for a Few: Exclusions and Misrecognitions in HE Admissions’ (NALN-funded). She has been invited to give keynotes and lectures internationally including India, China, Mexico, USA, Sweden, Australia and Italy as well as to a range of national audiences.