Dr Anna Olsson Rost

‘Strengthening Teacher Networks, decolonising secondary school history curricula’ (funded by the British Education Research Association).

‘Decolonial Praxis: Teacher educators’ perspectives on tensions, barriers and possibilities of anti-racist practice-based Initial Teacher Education in England’

‘Curriculum Innovation in Teacher Education: The Flexible Placement Model’

Postgraduate teaching

I am the lead tutor and lecturer on the PGCE History Secondary course, and I am the Unit Leader for the PGCE Critical Studies course.

Subject areas

History and Education

I have supervised MA Dissertations on the PG-PDPD programme.

I am currently supervising a PhD project with a focus on disability history and its integration into secondary schools.

Research expertise

My PhD thesis focused on early pioneers of comprehensive schooling (particularly Anglesey as the first fully comprehensivised LEA in 1953). My research interests and expertise include the history and politics of comprehensive schooling, policy-making in education and the roles of local and central government, and the Labour Party and comprehesive schooling.

I have also conducted reserach on representations of women and gender in history textboooks, and Cold War narratives in school magazines during the 1950s and 1960s. 

Academic collaborations

Co-Authored with Diane Warner and Yvonne Sinclair

‘The uncomfortable and destabilising realities for Black, Asian and minority ethnic students on an initial teacher education course’

https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/we-need-to-call-race-by-its-name-in-teacher-education 

Publications

Journal articles

Olsson Rost, A. and Collinson, M. (2022) ‘DEVELOPING THE LABOUR PARTY’S COMPREHENSIVE SECONDARY EDUCATION POLICY, 1950-1965: PARTY ACTIVISTS AS PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS AND POLICY ENTREPRENEURS’, British Journal of Educational Studies, https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/8W4US2SPGIVV5QHIKWVU/full?target=10.1080/00071005.2022.2131731

Olsson Rost, A. (2022). Strengthening teacher networks, decolonising secondary school history curricula: Challenges & opportunities in a (post-) pandemic context. In M. L. Moncrieffe, U. Markowska-Manista, J. Mwangi, & C. Gower (Eds.), Pandemic, protests, recovery, opportunities: Repositioning of educational research, teaching & learning. Research Intelligence, 151, 26–27. British Education Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/publication/summer-2022 

Olsson Rost, A. (2020). UNINTENDED BUT ALWAYS SIGNIFICANT? A RE-EXAMINATION OF THE CONSEQUENCES OF NATIONAL EDUCATION REFORM ON LOCAL DEVELOPMENTS IN THE PIONEERING OF COMPREHENSIVE SCHOOLING C.1918–1950. British Journal of Educational Studies. 68(5), pp.629-648.

Olsson Rost, A. (2019). The significance of the Welsh dimension: Pioneering of comprehensive education in Anglesey, circa 1930-1953. The Welsh History Review. 29(3), pp.436-460.

Olsson Rost, A. (2016). Hester Vaizey, Born in the GDR Living in the Shadow of the Wall, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. £20.00, 978-0-19-871873-4 (Hardback),pp. ixii + 217. Women’s History. 2(5), pp.37-38.

Olsson Rost, A. (2016). Britain is watching this school experiment, Anglesey leads the way’. A forgotten pioneer? Anglesey’s comprehensive system, circa 1953-1970. Transactions: Anglesey Antiquarian Society Journal. pp.27-45.

Olsson Rost, A. (2015). The Cold War Home Front, an Age of Anxiety? The Cold War narrative in school magazines from Holyhead Comprehensive School during the 1950s and 1960s. Llafur -Aberystwyth-.

Chapters in books

M. Hulme, KA. Olsson Rost, R. O’Sullivan Developing an online practicum in professional education : a case study from UK teacher education. C. Hong, W. Ma. In: Applied Degree Education and the Future of Learning. Singapore: Springer Singapore.

I co-authored two chapters in: Barber, J; Overland, E; Sackville-Ford, M (eds) (2020) Behaviour Management: An Essential Guide for Student & Newly Qualified Teachers. Routledge: Oxon:

‘The history of behaviour management, key theorists and current context’ (co-author: Chris Chambers)

‘Working with texts in English / History: Behaviour challenges and possible solutions’ (co-author: Chris Hanley)

Conferences

Olsson Rost, A. ‘What have we forgotten? Using school magazines to reveal children’s thinking about the Cold War and the future during the 1950s and 1960s’. Tapere University (Oct. 2021)

Olsson Rost, A. and Collinson, M. ‘Associational public intellectuals and party education policy: The Fabian Society and the shaping of Labour’s comprehensivisation policy, c.1960–1979’. (Sep. 2021)

Olsson Rost, A. ‘If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to destroy every f***ing grammar school…’ The grammar school debate and its unexpected consequences for the educational rhetoric of the Labour Party during the 1950s and 1960s’. Bangor University,

Olsson Rost, A. ‘Efficiency and economy? The complex path to comprehensivisation on Anglesey, 1935- 1953’. Reading University, 30/5/2014.

‘Documents and Interviews: Using written and oral testimonies collaboratively’ Paper for the Histories of Education Summer School Conference for Postgraduate Students, Hamburg, Germany (2013)

‘The grammar school debate and its unexpected consequences on the educational rhetoric of the Labour Party during the 1950s and 1960s.’ Paper for the Shaping the Labour Party Conference, Bangor, United Kingdom (2015)

I have co-authored the following blogs for the British Education Research Association (BERA):

The uncomfortable and destabilising realities for Black, Asian and minority ethnic students on an initial teacher education course | BERA

We need to call race by its name in teacher education | BERA

I was a contributor to Stuart Maconie’s book ‘The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save it’:

The Nanny State Made Me: A Story of Britain and How to Save it - Stuart Maconie - Google Books