Craig Skerritt

Rannóg

Department of Policy and Practice

Role

Senior Lecturer & Head of Department of Policy and Practice

Biography

Dr Craig Skerritt is Senior Lecturer and Head of Department of Policy and Practice at Marino Institute of Education.

An active education policy researcher, Dr Skerritt published a book with Bloomsbury in 2024 entitled Consulting Students on Classroom Practice, ‘Good’ Teaching and Teacher Performance: A Critical Account of Student Voice in Contemporary Schools and he is currently editing two books that will be published by Bloomsbury in summer 2026: 1) Advising on and Making Education Policy: New Perspectives on Past and Present Procedures and 2) Opportunities and Challenges for Policy Advice and Policy Making in Education: Future Possibilities.

Dr Skerritt regularly presents his research at conferences around the world, and he has given a keynote address at the University of Manchester Middle East Centre. In Ireland he has given talks at the invitations of University of Limerick, Mary Immaculate College and the Ombudsman for Children, while he also given talks at the invitation of England’s Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills (Ofsted), and in Norway at the University of Oslo.

Dr Skerritt is an external evaluator on the University of Malta’s Research Excellence Fund programme and he has examined doctoral theses as the invitations of institutions in Ireland (Mary Immaculate College; Maynooth University; and University of Limerick), Australia (The University of Western Australia), Canada (York University) and England (University of Oxford). He also currently serves on the editorial boards of many peer-reviewed journals, including British Educational Research Journal, British Journal of Sociology of Education, Cambridge Journal of Education, International Studies in Sociology of Education, and Journal of Educational Administration and History.

 

Teaching

BScED: ES8111 – Foundation Studies of Education — Module Leader and Lecturer

BEd (Primary): ED8402 – Dissertation — Lecturer

MES (Primary Mathematics Education): MA9201 – Research Methods and Dissertation — Module Leader and Lecturer

ORCiD

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3695-758X

Google Scholar

Craig Skerritt Google Scholar Profile

Publications

Books

Skerritt, C.  (2024). Consulting Students on Classroom Practice, ‘Good’ Teaching, and Teacher Performance: A Critical Account of Student Voice in Contemporary Schools. London: Bloomsbury.

 

Selected Book Chapters

Skerritt, C.  (2024). Senior leaders doing policy narration in social research projects. In Courtney, S.J., Armstrong, P.W., & McKay, A. (Eds.), Critical Education Leadership and Policy Scholarship: Introducing a New Research Methodology (pp.105–118). Leeds: Emerald Publishing.

 

Selected Journal Articles

2026

Skerritt, C.  (2026). Little-p policy production: exploring policy making in schools through the analytic of policy enactment. Journal of Education Policy, 41(2), 180–198.

 

2025

Skerritt, C.  (2025). The lasting impact of accountability, surveillance, and toxic leadership: a retrospective autoethnography. British Journal of Educational Studies.  https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2025.2557206

 

2024

Ni Shuilleabhain, A., & Skerritt, C. (2024). ‘I’m a troublemaker’: the need to focus on early-career academics’ experiences of sexual harassment in Ireland. Journal of Gender-Based Violence, 8(1), 116-123.

 

2023

Keddie, A., MacDonald, K., Blackmore, J., Boyask, R., Fitzgerald, S., Gavin, M., Heffernan, A., Hursh, D., McGrath-Champ, S., Møller, J., O’Neill, J., Parding, J., Salokangas, M., Skerritt, C., Stacey, M., Thomson, P., Wilkins, A., Wilson, R., Wylie, C. & Yoon, E. S. (2023). What needs to happen for school autonomy to be mobilised to create more equitable public schools and systems of education? The Australian Educational Researcher, 50, 1571–1597.

Skerritt, C.  (2023). School autonomy and the surveillance of teachers. International Journal of Leadership in Education, 26(4), 553-580.

Skerritt, C.  (2023). A sinister side of student voice: surveillance, suspicion, and stigma. Journal of Education Policy, 38(6), 926-943.

Skerritt, C.  (2023). Is critical scholarship being reflected in policy? A critical response to ‘Looking at Our School 2022: A Quality Framework’. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 55(4), 499-511.

Skerritt, C.  (2023). Towards a mechanism for expert policy advice in education. British Educational Research Journal, 49(4), 749–765.

Skerritt, C. , Brown, M., & O’Hara, J. (2023). Student voice and classroom practice: how students are consulted in contexts without traditions of student voice. Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 31(5), 955-974.

Skerritt, C. , O’Hara, J. & Brown, M. (2023). Researching how student voice plays out in relation to classroom practice in Irish post-primary schools: a heuristic device. Irish Educational Studies, 42(3), 297-314.

Skerritt, C. , McNamara, G., Quinn, I., O’Hara, J., & Brown, M. (2023). Middle leaders as policy translators: prime actors in the enactment of policy. Journal of Education Policy, 38(4), 567-585.

Skerritt, C. , O’Hara, J., Brown, M., McNamara, G., & O’Brien, S. (2023). Enacting school self-evaluation: the policy actors in Irish schools. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 32(3), 694-716.

 

2022

McNamara, G., Skerritt, C. , O’Hara, J., O’Brien, S., & Brown, M. (2022). For improvement, accountability, or the economy? Reflecting on the purpose (s) of school self-evaluation in Ireland. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 54(2), 158-173.

Skerritt, C.  (2022). Are these the accountable teacher subjects citizens want? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 30, https://doi.org/10.14507/epaa.30.7278

Skerritt, C. , O’Hara, J., Brown, M., McNamara, G., & O’Brien, S. (2022). Student voice and the school hierarchy: the disconnect between senior leaders and teachers. Oxford Review of Education, 48(5), 606-621.

 

2021

O’Keeffe, S., & Skerritt, C.  (2021). Exploring teacher identity using poststructural tools. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 44(2), 179-192.

Skerritt, C.  (2021). Pressure, bureaucracy, accountability, and all for show: Irish perspectives on life inside England’s schools. British Journal of Educational Studies, 69(6), 693-713.

 

2020

Skerritt, C.  (2020). Classes for lessons and classes for life: segregating students within schools, between schools, and after school. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 41(7), 1081-1089.

Skerritt, C. , & Salokangas, M. (2020). Patterns and paths towards privatisation in Ireland. Journal of Educational Administration and History, 52(1), 84-99.

 

2019

Skerritt, C.  (2019). Privatization and ‘destatization’: school autonomy as the ‘Anglo neoliberalization’ of Irish education policy. Irish Educational Studies, 38(2), 263-279.

Skerritt, C.  (2019). Discourse and teacher identity in business-like education. Policy Futures in Education, 17(2), 153-171.

Skerritt, C.  (2019). Irish migrant teachers’ experiences and perceptions of autonomy and accountability in the English education system. Research Papers in Education, 34(5), 569-596.

Skerritt, C.  (2019). ‘I think Irish schools need to keep doing what they’re doing’: Irish teachers’ views on school autonomy after working in English academies. Improving Schools, 22(3), 267-287.

 

2017

Skerritt, C.  (2017). The code for success? Using a Bernsteinian perspective on sociolinguistics to accentuate working-class students’ underachievement in the Republic of Ireland. Irish Journal of Sociology, 25(3), 274-296.

 

Research/Professional Interests

Accountability; policy advice; policy enactment; policy making; privatisation; student voice; surveillance; toxic leadership

Professional Activities

Special Interest Group Leadership

• Secretary & Treasurer, Educational Studies Association of Ireland’s Critical and Feminist Research Policy Analysis Special Interest Group (February 2023 – present)
• Convenor, British Educational Research Association’s Educational Research and Educational Policy-Making Special Interest Group (August 2022 – September 2025) 

Editorial Board Membership

• Cambridge Journal of Education (November 2025 - present)
• British Journal of Sociology of Education (September 2025 – present)
• Journal of Educational Administration and History (December 2024 – present)
• International Studies in Sociology of Education (November 2024 – present)
• British Educational Research Journal (February 2024 – present)
• Educational Research and Evaluation (March 2023 – present)

Funding Application Evaluations

• Evaluator, University of Malta’s Research Excellence Fund programme (July 2024 – present)

Doctoral Thesis Examinations

• University of Oxford, UK (2024)
•  Mary Immaculate College, Ireland (2024)
• Maynooth University, Ireland (2023)
• University of Limerick, Ireland (2023)
• The University of Western Australia, Australia (2022) 

Awards

• Special Interest Group Best Presentation Award (British Educational Research Association, 2024)
• Teaching Excellence Award for ‘Educational Leadership’ and ‘Flexible Learning and Digital Delivery’ (Institute of Teaching and Learning, University of Manchester, 2023)
• Early Career Researcher Paper of High Commendation Award (Educational Studies Association of Ireland, 2022)