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Dr Claire Fox

Reader in Educational Psychology; Head of Research Ethics and Governance for the Faculty of Health and Education

My profile

Biography

I graduated with a BSc (Hons) degree in Human Psychology from Aston University in 1996 and a PhD from Keele University in 2002. I re-joined the School of Psychology at Keele University in September 2004 as a Teaching Fellow and Learning Support Tutor, became a lecturer in September 2005, a Senior Lecturer in 2011, and a Professor in 2018. My PhD, supervised by Prof Mike Boulton, focused on identifying the social skills problems that put children at risk of being bullied. Also, I developed and ran a Social Skills Training Programme for children bullied by their peers, and evaluated the effectiveness of this intervention. Following my PhD I worked as a Research Associate in the School of Social Relations on a project to evaluate the work of the NSPCC Schools Teams (2001-2003), and for one year I was a member of the research team based at the University of Birmingham responsible for the National Evaluation of the Children’s Fund.

I joined MMU as a Reader in Educational Psychology in 2019 to teach on the new BSc in Educational Psychology, which  received accreditation from the BPS in 2020. I am an applied Social/Developmental Psychologist with an established national and international reputation in the fields of school bullying, teenage relationship abuse, and children’s humour. I am active member of the Education and Social Research Institute with responsibilities for research ethics and research mentoring. In 2022 I became Head of Research Ethics and Governance for the Faculty of Health and Education. 

Expert reviewer for external funding bodies

- Member of ESRC Peer Review College.

- Advisor for NIHR Panels.

Visiting and honorary positions

-  Academic Member of the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit Research and Evaluation Board.

Editorial Board membership

- Editorial Board for Aggressive Behaviour and I review for numerous journals including: Social Development; Journal of Adolescence; British Journal of Developmental Psychology; British Journal of Educational Psychology; Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry; Developmental Psychology; Child Development; Personality and Individual Differences.

Membership of professional associations

- Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the BPS. Current Chair of the Psychology of Education Section (BPS).

- Senior Fellow of the HEA.

Get in touch

0161 247 2179
BR 1.43 Brooks Building

Projects

I am committed to conducting applied social psychological research, which has both theoretical and practical implications. In particular, I am interested in the problem of bullying in schools and domestic abuse. Supported by two research grants in 2009 (from the BPS and British Academy) I developed a humour styles questionnaire for children and young people and in 2012 completed a longitudinal study funded by the ESRC to examine the links between children’s humour styles and the problem of bullying in schools, in collaboration with Dr Simon Hunter at the University of Strathclyde and Dr Sian Jones at Queen Margaret University. Another collaboration with Prof David Gadd and Professor Ian Butler resulted in a major ESRC award of £385,000 over three years to examine the question of how to prevent more boys from becoming perpetrators of domestic violence in later life (2010-2013). For further details see www.boystomenproject.com. At the same time we led a European wide project supported by a substantial grant under the Daphne III call. The total sum was for 309,000 euros over 2 years 2011-2013. The READAPT project (Relationship Education and Domestic Abuse Prevention Tuition) involved us working with 6 partners across Europe in the UK, Spain, Malta, France, Sweden and Belgium. The research findings from these two projects are presented in our book ‘Young Men and Domestic Abuse’ published by Routledge in 2015.

I recently completed an evaluation of a Mentors in Violence Prevention Programme with the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit. I am currently working with The Proud Trust on a 1+3 ESRC White Rose PhD studentship entitled, ‘Bullying of LGBT+ pupils: School contextual risk and protective factors’. 

Teaching

I teach on the BSc Educational Psychology programme; I supervise final year Empirical Projects and have a final year Special Option Unit called School Bullying. 

Postgraduate teaching

I have supervised 15 MSc Psychology dissertations from 2011-2019 on a range of topics:

Does the gender of the bully-victim pairing and the type of bullying portrayed influence children’s attitudes to a bullying incident?

Young children’s use of humour.

Undergraduates’ experiences of bullying in Higher Education.

Parents’ experiences of supporting their child’s learning at home.

Young adults’ experiences of living with dyslexia.

Children’s attitudes towards physical disability.

Perceptions of self-harm: The role of labelling and group norms.

The leisure experiences and friendships of disabled children and young people in Cheshire.

“Too little too late” Comparing the effectiveness of an emotion-centred intervention across two time points in the year 6 transfer year.

The development of an ‘Attitudes towards Emotional Abuse’ scale.

How are children’s perceptions of Autism Spectrum Disorder affected by labelling and gender?

Child and parent perceptions of healthiness and body image.

Evaluating the effectiveness of a programme to raise awareness and understanding of healthy relationships in primary schools.

Teachers’ attitudes towards and experiences of addressing mental health issues in schools.

The power of bullying language in the form of labels: can bullying labels affect an audience’s perception?

Supervision

- Cathryn Young (2012). The impact of sleep problems on the parents of children with ASD. Clinical Psychology Doctoral thesis (2nd supervisor).

- Becky Hale (2007-2013). The role of the parents in school bullying: Parent and child perspectives.

- Lucy James (2013-2016). Humour styles and psychosocial adjustment in junior school pupils.

- Nicola Ralph (2014-2018). Experiences of bullying in children with and without SEND.

- Emma Harrison (2016-2019). Students’ experiences of bullying in higher education.

- Charlotte Bagnall (2017-2020). How can we improve children’s emotional well-being over the transfer period?

- Megan Hermolle (2018-2019). Understanding rape myths in the United Kingdom (2nd supervisor).

- Eleanor Grace (2020-). Bullying of LGBT+ pupils: School contextual risk and protective factors.

- Jedde de Vries (2021-). Developing a conceptual model and measure of physical playfulness in adolescents. 

Research outputs