Professor of Education

Director of Postgraduate Research

Faculty of Culture & Pedagogy

room 625

p.dowling#ioe.ac.uk
dowling#dj8.so-net.ne.jp

(please replace # with @)

office
+44(0)20 7612 6668

fax
+44(0)20 7612 6177

mobile
+44(0)7711 070 463
+81(0)909 158 4211

All original photographs on this site copyrighted to Paul Dowling

My current favourites: 1, 2. 3

Danang motorbike series

The sumo rikishi on the previous page is Kitazakura. The photograph was taken in the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo in September 2004.

site updated 16th September 2009

The Sociology of Mathematics Education: Mathematical Myths/Pedagogic Texts (London, Falmer Press) introduced my general methodological approach ('constructive description') and my language for the analysis of pedagogic texts (now referred to as 'social activity method', SAM). Both have far wider potential fields of application than school mathematics and you don't have to be a mathematician or a mathematics teacher to read the book. Sociology as Method: departures from the forensics of culture, text and knowledge is now available from Sense Publishers (but cheaper at Amazon). This work extends the language considerably and also extends the range of applications, from film, to art, to classrooms, and so on.

The work also includes a fundamental engagement with the work of Basil Bernstein; here's the preface (don't let it put you off):

I’m inside a dark cave, but I’m looking out into the light, not at shadows on the back wall. An elderly woman shambles out of the bathhouse. “Domo arigatou”, she drawls as she hands bottles of body wash and shampoo to the attendant hiding in the kiosk. She moves to her shoes that have been waiting for her, glancing back at me. She thinks about a greeting, thinks better of it and shambles out. A young couple hurry in. Bolder, the girl bows and the boy mutters, “Konnichiwa.’ And they hurry up the stairs to their room. A sporty team of boys step shyly inside the door. They enquire at the kiosk, take their bottles and shuffle into the bathhouse. Not much later, dampened, they shuffle out again, asking the way to the station (how did they get here, I wonder).

Two boys and a dog, a woman with an umbrella (it’s quite sunny out), a man with a briefcase and a traffic of cars and vans and scooters glide past without so much as a glance. A middle-aged woman appears to say ‘tombo’—dragonfly—on her way out of the bathhouse; perhaps I’ve missed a syllable or two or, more likely, adjusted a couple of consonants. Then a young American man, wearing shorts, stands in the doorway, looking at me, and asks,
“What kind of place is this?”
“It’s an onsen.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s a hot spring bathhouse and hotel. You pay at the kiosk.”
“Cool”, he says and wanders off.

But it’s not cool at all. In fact it’s very, very hot—too hot—and very public. Which is why I’m sitting in the lobby and waiting for my friends and not in the bath.

Are you interested in all this? I guess the answer might depend on where it’s going. Well, it’s not going anywhere, right now.

...

The second edition of Doing Research/Reading Research—jointly authored with Andrew Brown—is now available from Amazon.