Senior Lecturer in the Centre for Education & Policy Analysis, Dr Joseph Maslen's published research is on social mobility and aspiration in UK policy debates.
Since setting out this research focus (explained here) 5+ years ago via an acclaimed article Cracking the Code
(4,000+ reads), he has gained prominence as an expert voice. This includes giving an invited talk at
Oxford University in 2018, being invited to externally examine courses for other universities, peer reviewing for journals
including British Educational Research Journal and Journal of Education Policy, and being invited to speak on the topic by Times Radio.
International peer esteem includes being selected onto the (invitation-only) voting panel for the Times Higher Education's Global Academic Reputation Survey in 2021/22, 2022/23 and 2023/24, holding an external PhD examinership (Spain), and serving as a peer reviewer for a national funding council in another overseas country.
Key research papers (2019-24)
Maslen, J. 2024. The Limits of "Opportunity": Is There a Clear Labour or Conservative View of Social Mobility? Political Quarterly, advanced online publication. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13368.
Maslen, J. 2023. Who Dares Wins: Learning to be Entrepreneurial as a Conservative Social Justice Discourse. British Politics, advanced online publication. doi:10.1057/s41293-023-00228-z.
Maslen, J. 2022. Do the Conservatives Believe in Social Mobility? Political Quarterly, 93(1), 104-111. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13107.
Maslen, J. 2019. Cracking the Code: The Social Mobility Commission and Education Policy Discourse. Journal of Education Policy, 34(5), 599-612. doi:10.1080/02680939.2018.1449891.
Policy responses (since 2022 - regular contributor to LSE 'British Politics and Policy' series)
Maslen, J. 2023. Are Plans to Reduce 'Low-Value' University Degrees Putting a 'Cap on Aspiration'? (31/07/23).
Maslen, J. 2023. Why the UK Is a Long Way From a Consensus on Social Mobility (31/01/23).
Maslen, J. 2022. Is the Social Mobility Commission Catching up With Recent Conservative Politics? Katharine Birbalsingh's Comments on 'Small Steps up the Ladder' (21/06/22).
Research findings in brief
Dr Maslen's research on the dominant discourse of social mobility in schools has found that:
1. It envisions children competing against each other, with the successful ones 'winning the race for good jobs'.
2. Because not everyone can win, the focus is on the individual not the collective.
3. The ideal child in the dominant discourse, therefore, is a ruthlessly determined or 'unleashed' competitor (against other children), as is the ideal educator, competing against other educators on the child's behalf.
4. Simultaneously, however, schools are seen as facilitating this competition by technologies and systems of control. The regulation of school life proposed within the dominant discourse includes, for example, labels on teachers' doors that disclose their educational backgrounds, strict uniforms, silent corridors, and statistical comparisons with rival schools.
5. How this 'unleashed' individual is to thrive within the surveillance culture of schools has not been reconciled.
Academic role at Liverpool Hope University
Established as the curriculum lead for the second year of the Education degree programme in 2021, Dr Maslen lectures mainly on the history of education.
'incredible tutor ... made me enjoy history again' - dissertation acknowledgements, 2017
'loved my history classes with Joseph ... I feel excited to go on his zoom calls' - internal pre-NSS survey, 2021
Main career milestones at Hope (2014-24)
2022: joined the University's REF2029 Steering Group
2021: involved in the production of the University's overall Institutional Environment Statement (IES) for REF2021
2018: awarded Senior Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy
2017: awarded Commendation for Excellence in the University's Learning and Teaching Awards
2016: began co-leading the University-level community of practice in Research-Informed Teaching
Background
Dr Maslen received his BA, MA and PhD from the history department at the University of Manchester. His postgraduate funding came from the UK Arts and Humanities Research Board/Council, first an AHRB MA studentship (2003/4) and then another full AHRB/C studentship (awarded 2004) covering his doctoral research.
Research funding
$188,966 from Templeton Religion Trust/University of Oklahoma for 2-year project (2019-21) - Personal Liberty, Mutual Respect and Tolerance: From Values to Virtues (co-investigator)
- BERA 2019 Symposium report
List of works in publication
Maslen, J. 2024. The Limits of "Opportunity": Is There a Clear Labour or Conservative View of Social Mobility? Political Quarterly, advanced online publication. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13368.
Maslen, J. 2023. Who Dares Wins: Learning to be Entrepreneurial as a Conservative Social Justice Discourse. British Politics, advanced online publication. doi:10.1057/s41293-023-00228-z.
Maslen, J. 2022. Do the Conservatives Believe in Social Mobility? Political Quarterly, 93(1), 104-111. doi:10.1111/1467-923X.13107.
Maslen, J. 2019. Cracking the Code: The Social Mobility Commission and Education Policy Discourse. Journal of Education Policy, 34(5), 599-612. doi:10.1080/02680939.2018.1449891.
Maslen, J. 2017. The Working Class Girl of the 1970s: Reconstructing the Theoretical Field of Carolyn Steedman's The Tidy House. History of Education, 46(1), 94-107. doi:10.1080/0046760X.2016.1161082.
Maslen, J. 2014. Social Movements in British History: The Invention of a Rebel Tradition? Social Movement Studies, 13(4), 514-518. doi:10.1080/14742837.2013.844065.
Maslen, J. 2013. Autobiographies of a Generation? Carolyn Steedman, Luisa Passerini and the Memory of 1968. Memory Studies, 6(1), 23-36. doi:10.1177/1750698012463891.
Maslen, J. 2012. Questioning the Cultural Memory of the 1960s: Communist Narratives in Contemporary British History. In E. Boesen et al (Eds.), Peripheral Memories: Public and Private Forms of Experiencing and Narrating the Past (pp. 203-218). Columbia University Press/Transcript-Verlag. ISBN: 9783837621167.
Maslen, J. 2010. History and the "Processing" of Class in Social Theory. In H.F. Dahms and L. Hazelrigg (Eds.), Theorizing the Dynamics of Social Processes (pp. 101-121) (Book Series: Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Volume 27). Emerald. ISBN: 9780857242235.
Maslen, J. 2010. The Personal Politics of Raphael Samuel. Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly, 33(1), 209-221. doi: 10.1353/bio.0.0160.
Maslen, J. 2009. Big Punning, Large Troping and Huge Riddling: Why and How Macbeth and Other Narrative Texts Are Important and How to Deal with Them. Sociological Research Online, 14(5). doi:10.5153/sro.2067.
Maslen, J. 2007. (Ed. with S. Deasey et al) Authentic Artifice: Cultures of the Real. European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford. ISBN: 9781902496498.
Maslen, J. 2006. (Ed. with C. Baker et al) Perspectives on Conflict. European Studies Research Institute, University of Salford. ISBN: 9781905732081.
Academic citizenship at Liverpool Hope University
- REF Steering Group, University level | Sep 2022 - Pres
- Research Committee, Faculty/School level | Sep 2022 - Pres
- Senior Ethics Lead, Faculty/School level | Jun 2021 - Sep 2021
- Learning & Teaching Committee, Faculty/School level | Jun 2017 - Jun 2019
- Senior Academic Advisor, Faculty/School level | Jan 2017 - Feb 2019
- co-Leader of Research-Informed Teaching Community of Practice, University level | Nov 2016 - Jun 2019
- 'Key Practitioner' responsible for innovation in research-led teaching, Faculty/School level | Sep 2016 - Jun 2019
Major areas of thought leadership
- -attitudes to the education of women and girls | see Research Article
- -the rise and revival of grammar schools | see Expert Comment
- -widening participation and social mobility | see Research Article and Expert Comment
- -education policy analysis | see Expert Comment
- -generational change in education | see Video
Doctoral supervisions
- Matt Thompson | EdD Sep 2020 - Pres
- Nevan Hunter | EdD Oct 2018 - May 2023
- Zaina Shihabi | PhD Mar 2015 - May 2019
Joseph welcomes proposals from students for research projects themed around social mobility in UK policy.
News archive
Dr Joseph Maslen speaks to Oxford seminar on social mobility
Dr Joseph Maslen develops project on fundamental British values
Dr Joseph Maslen shares insights at Careers Convention
Dr Joseph Maslen joins History of Teachers special interest group