About
Research
Email: sean.whittle@stmarys.ac.uk
Biography
Sean Whittle is a Senior Lecturer in Catholic Education and he is a member of CERRL. He teaches on range of post-graduate courses including the MA Education pathways, the MA Catholic Schools Leadership and the EdD course, and with research students.
Sean is a long serving secondary school RE teacher, and has experience of working in a four very different but equally successful Catholic schools and in a Catholic Sixth Form College. He continues to combine academic activities whilst working part-time as an RE in a Catholic school.
Sean joined the teaching staff at St Mary’s in April 2023, however he had previously been a Visiting Research Fellow who worked with Professor Gerald Grace for many years.
Areas of scholarly interest
Sean is interested in:
- the philosophy or theory of Catholic Education
- Catholic Education Studies
- philosophy of education
- the theology of Catholic education
- Religious Education in Catholic schools
- non-confessional Catholic Education
- religious literacy
- the intersections between theology and education.
Research
Research profile
Sean’s monograph, A Theory of Catholic Education (Bloomsbury 2014), which was developed from his doctoral research, presents a robust philosophy of Catholic education that draws fruitfully on insights from Karl Rahner. He has edited six books on Catholic Education:
- Vatican II and New Thinking about Catholic Education 2016 [Routledge]
- Researching Catholic Education 2018 [Springer]
- Religious Education in Catholic schools in the UK and Ireland 2018 [Peter Lang]
- Irish and British Perspectives on Catholic Education 2021 [Springer]
- New Thinking, New Scholarship
- New Research in Catholic Education: Responses to the Work of Professor Gerald Grace 2021 [Routledge].
Also in 2021, he jointly edited with Dr Gareth Byrne Catholic Education: A lifelong journey [Veritas]. In 2023 and 2024, three further edited volumes are due for release. Since 2016, he has been collaborating with other academics working in the field of Catholic Education Studies by serving as the organising secretary for the Network for Researchers in Catholic Education (NfRCE).
Sean has also been engaged in a range of research projects including:
- a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship at Brunel University on a Religious Literacy project
- researching RSE in Catholic schools in Northern Ireland
- a research project of a Catholic Multi-Academy Trust in Birmingham).
He has also frequently been a visiting lecturer at universities, such as:
- Oxford Brookes University
- Newman University
- Edgehill University.
Sean serves as chair of the academic association AULRE.
Sean holds a BA in Philosophy and Theology (Heythrop), a Master’s in Systematic Theology (MTh Heythrop), an MA in Education (IOE-UCL), a PGCE in RE, and a Doctorate in the Philosophy of Catholic Education (IOE-UCL).