Graduate Student, Politics and International Relations
PhD Student
Jesus
Thesis Title: "The Challenge of Reform: Explaining Policy Change in Secondary Education in Western Europe"
About
Hello, and welcome to what passes as a webpage... once I work out how to do websites (or have enough money to pay a pro), this page will improve!
Anyway, I'm Tom Speller, and I'm an ESRC funded DPhil Student in Politics at Jesus College, Oxford, having read for an MPhil in European Politics & Society at the same college between 2006 and 2008. As an undergraduate I read European Studies with French at King's College London, obtaining First Class Honours (as well as the Associateship of King's College, a quirky qualification unique to King's); I also spent a year abroad as an Erasmus Exchange Student at Institut d'Études Politiques, Paris between September 2004 and July 2005. Next year, I will be spending 5 months at the Library of Congress in Washington DC on an AHRC-ESRC Scholarship, researching primarily American secondary education policy.
Academically, I am interested primarily in UK/US/French Politics, Social Policy (especially education), dynamics of policy change, and political parties. I teach Introductory British, French and American Politics to 1st year undergraduates, and Western European Politics and Modern British Government to 2nd/3rd year students.
Research wise, at King's my undergraduate thesis (supervised by Stathis Kouvélakis) focused on explaining the attitudes of centre-left political parties in the EU to the regretfully aborted European Constitution, with a particular focus on the French Parti Socialiste. At Oxford, I decided education policy was more interesting, and my two years of the MPhil were spent explaining the extent to which political parties can actually shape secondary education, with Katrin Auel as my supervisor. My answer: basically, they can, but policies tend to be path dependent. My DPhil focuses more on determining the conditions that allow for rapid policy displacement in secondary education, and I have Nigel Bowles as my supervisor.
Anyway, if anyone is working in the same broad areas as me, feel free to contact me: it would be great to hear from you!
Contact Information
Jesus College, Oxford
Oxford
UNITED KINGDOM
OX1 3DW
