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Dr Mary Mihovilovic

Associate Head of School Postgraduate Taught Programmes  Education
Associate Professor

Dr Mary Mihovilovic

About Research

Email: mary.mihovilovic@stmarys.ac.uk

Biography

Mary Mihovilović is Professor of Leadership in Catholic Education, Thea Bowman Research Centre Lead for Catholic Education Associate Head of School: Postgraduate taught programmes in Education. These include the MA Education Leading Innovation and Change (LIAC), Coaching and Mentoring, Physical Education, Religious Education (RE) and SEND pathways); MA Catholic School Leadership; PgCert Coaching and Mentoring, PgCert Religious Education and PgCert SEND. She teaches on the MA Education: LIAC and RE pathways and the Catholic Certificate in Religious Studies (CCRS) and supervises EdD and PhD students.

Mary is an experienced teacher of religious education and classical studies having taught in diverse inner city and suburban secondary schools and held senior leadership positions for 20 years, including 12 years in secondary headship before joining St Mary’s University in 2009. She has also worked as a diocesan inspector and educational consultant. She has had extensive involvement in the third sector as trustee and in various leadership roles. She is currently a foundation director of a diocesan Multi-Academy Trust, a foundation governor of a Catholic Sixth Form College and serves on various national and diocesan committees and boards.

Mary is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and holds a Bachelor of Humanities (Hons) in Religious Studies and Classical Studies, PGCE (Secondary Religious Education), master’s degrees in educational leadership and Christian Spirituality, and a doctorate. Her doctoral research explored the experience of Catholic teachers in secular schools.

Research interests and areas of doctoral supervision

  • Educational Leadership
  • Catholic Education
  • Women in the Catholic Church
  • The development and distinctiveness of Catholic Multi Academy Trusts
  • The experiences of Catholic school teachers who belong to other faiths or none.

Research

Research profile

Current research projects

  • Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: CEOs' Perspectives and Experiences (co-investigator) with Professor Stephen Parker (principal Investigator) and Dr Jakub Kowalewski (research fellow) funded by the Holy Cross Sisters.
  • Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: School Leaders’ Perspectives, QR funded (principal investigator)
  • Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: Catholic Life Leads Perspectives, Research England Policy Support Fund, (principal investigator)
  • Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: The role of the Foundation Director, how is it understood and enacted? British Educational Leadership, Management and Administration Society Small Grants, (principal investigator).

Research supervision

  • A creative approach to using song as a pedagogical tool for developing social justice: what are the benefits and challenges for primary religious education? (PhD)
  • What are the difficulties that hinder, and the strategies and approaches that enable, pre-service teaching students with attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in learning to teach mathematics? (EdD)
  • What are the key barriers for support staff in adopting an attachment aware and trauma informed approach within whole school practice? How might these barriers be mitigated? (EdD)
  • A study of the practice of the transmission of Christian anthropology in diocesan Catholic high schools in the USA. (PhD)
  • How do alumni of Catholic secondary schools perceive the impact of their Catholic education on their lives? (PhD)
  • Beyond Villains and Villainy: Recovering Catholic Britain’s Silenced Story in an Era of Curriculum Decolonisation. (EdD)
  • From Theology to Practice: Mission-Shaped Leadership in Catholic Multi Academy Trusts and Its Impact on Vulnerable Pupils. (PhD)
  • How can a compassionate approach to professional development influence an embodied learning? (PhD)From Mission to Mobility: A Case Study of the Mission and Identity of a U.S. Catholic University. (EdD)
  • How can institutional drift in business schools be conceptualised and diagnosed in ways that enable reflective alignment between institutional purpose and educational practice? (EdD)
  • Money mobilises mission: The origins, organisation and development of Christian Science and Seventh-day Adventism in England before 1940. (PhD)

Completions

  • Female Teachers’ Experiences of Teaching Abortion Within GCSE Religious Studies: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (PhD)

  • The Impact of the First Five Rectors of St. Joseph’s College on Character Formation and Educational Leadership (MPhil)

  • Motivation and Me: The lived experiences of schoolteachers engaged in a Master of Education programme in Wales (EdD)

  • What are the leadership qualities necessary to lead a Catholic secondary school according to Catholic secondary school headteachers? (EdD)

    Other research supervision includes Farmington Scholars and practitioner researchers in schools and MATs.

Keynote lectures and addresses

  • ‘Career-long Professional learning: A Reflexive Journey’. Keynote Address, Westminster Diocese Newly Qualified Teachers’ Conference, St Mary’s University, July 2017.
  • ‘Practitioner Research in Schools: Researching Teachers or Teacher Researchers? Keynote Address, Harrow Collegiate Teaching Schools Alliance Practitioner Research festival, July 2017.
  • ‘Midwives of Mystery: Chaplains in Schools’, Keynote Lecture, Annual Conference of the Association of Chaplains in Catholic Education’, Hinsley Hall, Leeds, June 2019.
  • ‘Leading Innovation and Change in Schools: Drivers and Blockers’, Keynote Address, Southwark Diocesan Deputy Headteachers Conference, St Mary’s University, July 2019.
  • ‘Who is a CEO of a MAT?’, After-dinner speech, CES/Formation National CMAT CEOs Conference, Stanbrook Abbey Hotel, Worcester, November 2023
  • ‘Who defines the role of the School Leader and the limits of their autonomy? Can principals exercise leadership as their autonomy diminishes, or have they become managers?', Keynote Lecture, Mauritius Institute of Education, July 2024.
  • ‘Catholic Education and Synodality’, Keynote Lecture, Network for Researchers in Catholic Education (NfRCE) Annual Conference, Glasgow University, October 2024.
  • ‘Diversity around Us, Diversity within Us: Catholic Schools 2025’, Le Service Diocésain de L'Éducation Catholique (SeDEC) Mauritius, June 2025.
  • ‘Midwives of Mystery’, Keynote Lecture for Teachers of Religious Education in Catholic Schools and Colleges, SeDEC, Mauritius, June 2025.
  • ‘Leading in a Catholic School or College’, Keynote Lecture for School Leaders, SeDEC, Mauritius, June 2025.
  • ‘Gaudium et Spes: Catholic Multi Academy Trusts living Solidarity and Subsidiarity’ Keynote Lecture, Gaudium et Spes at 60: Social Justice and Catholic Education, St Mary’s University, December 2025.
  • ‘What does it mean for Catholic Schools to be both Distinctive and Inclusive?’, Keynote Lecture for School Leaders, SeDEC, Mauritius, April 2026.

Conference and seminar papers

  • ‘Betwixt and Between: Catholic Teachers in Secular Schools’, NfRCE Annual Conference, Heythrop, London, September 2017.
  • ‘An Ordinary Vocation: Catholic Teachers in Non-religiously Affiliated School’, Christian Education International Conference, Liverpool Hope University, July 2018.
  • ‘What Policy and Practice enframe the Experience of Catholic Teachers in Secular Schools?’ NfRCE Annual Conference, Newman University, Birmingham, September 2018.
  • ‘Sustaining the System: Non-Catholic Teachers in Catholic Secondary Schools’, NfRCE Annual Conference, Dublin City University, October 2019.
  • ‘Co-creating the MA Education experience: Enhancing engagement for all through video-conferenced learning and teaching’, with James Tallon, St Mary’s University Festival of Learning and Teaching, June 2020.
  • ‘A Turbulent Journey: Students’ Perspectives on the Purpose and Value of an MA Education: Leading Innovation and Change Programme during the Covid-19 Pandemic’, Teacher Education Advancement Network (TEAN) May 2021.
  • ‘A Turbulent Journey: Students’ Perspectives on the Purpose and Value of an MA Education Programme during the Covid-19 Pandemic’, St Mary’s University Festival of Learning and Teaching, June 2021.
  • ‘Catholic Schools and the Synod’, St Mary’s University, January 2022.
  • ‘Teacher Identity in Catholic Schools’, Research Seminar, St Mary’s University, May 2022.
  • ‘Pivotal to the Future of Catholic Primary Schools: Non-Catholic Teachers’, NfRCE Annual Conference, St Mary’s University, May 2022.
  • ‘Holocaust Education in a Catholic Context: Bystanders, Collaborators, Resisters, Liberators, Martyrs, Rescuers, Perpetrators?’ ATCRE Annual Conference, Hagley Catholic School, March 2023.
  • ‘Continuity or Discontinuity? Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts through the lens of Church Teaching on Catholic Education’. Research Symposium, Female Voices in Catholic Education, NfRCE in collaboration with St Claudine’s Catholic School for Girls, May 2023.
  • ‘Rome on the Rates: Can multi-academy trusts with a religious character be justified? Faith and Education Symposium: contemporary and global issues in historical perspective, St Mary’s University, April 2024
  • ‘Headteachers’ Post-Pandemic Reflections: ‘Where is our support?’, BERA Conference, Manchester University, September 2024 with Jamie Ribolla.
  • ‘Reading the Signs of the Times: Catholic Schools Responding to the Joys and the Hopes, the Griefs and the Anxieties of our Time,’ Beyond the Dark Clouds Lecture Series: Prophetic Voices from Around the World, Leeds Trinity University 30th Oct 2024‘
  • The Researcher is Somebody: Positionality in Catholic Education Research’, CERRL Seminar, St Mary’s University, November 2024.
  • ‘Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: CEOs' Perspectives and Experiences’, with Professor Stephen Parker and Dr Jakub Kowalewski, Maryvale Online Academic Forum, June 2025.
  • ‘Seismic shifts in English state funded Catholic Education: Can headteachers exercise leadership as their autonomy diminishes or have they become managers?’, Annual BELMAS Conference, Brighton, July 2025. 
  • ‘The De-Autonomised Headteacher and openness to the most vulnerable and marginalised in the local context: A Paradox in Leadership’, Annual NfRCE Conference, Marino Institute of Education, Dublin, October 2024‘
  • The De-Autonomised Headteacher: A Paradox in leadership’, St Mary’s University School of Education Research Seminars, November 2025.
  • The De-Autonomised Headteacher: A Paradox in Leadership’, Annual BELMAS Conference, Cardiff, July 2026 with Mark Innes

Publications

  • Mihovilovic, M. and Boulton, H, (2019) Between and Betwixt: Catholic Teachers in Secular Schools, International Journal of Christianity & Education, 03/2020, Volume 24, Issue 1.
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2021) ‘Sustaining the System: Non-Catholic Teachers in Catholic Secondary Schools’ in Whittle, S. (ed.) (2021) Irish and British Reflection on Catholic Education: Foundations, Identity, Leadership Issues and Religious Education in Catholic Schools, Singapore: Springer.
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2024) ‘Pivotal to the Future of Catholic Primary Schools: Teachers who are not Catholic’, in Whittle, S. (2024) Leadership Matters in Catholic Education, Singapore: Springer.
  • Mihovilovic, M (2024) 'Women in the life and mission of the Catholic Church in the world: who are we, the Church, listening to on the synodal path?' Pastoral Review, Vol 20, Issue 3, pp. 16-19.
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2025) ‘Catholic Multi Academy Trusts: An agenda for Research’, Pastoral Review, Vol 21, Issue 1, pp. 38-42.
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2025) 'The Researcher is Somebody: Positionality in Catholic Education Research, in Whittle, S. (Ed.) Supporting Research in Catholic Education, Springer (in press).
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2025c) ‘CEOs leading Catholic Education: Who would have thought it?’ in Whittle, S. (Ed) Towards a Distinctive and Inclusive Theology of Catholic Education Studies; Critical reflections on the Work of Professor John Sullivan, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 129-143.
  • Mihovilovic, M. (2026) ‘Reading the Signs of the Times: Catholic multi-academy trusts and schools in England responding to the joys and the hopes, the griefs and the anxieties of our time’, Pastoral Review, Vol 22, Issue 3 pp. 20-25
  • Innes, M, Drew, I and Mihovilovic, M. (in press); ‘The De-Autonomised Headteacher: A Paradox in Leadership’, in Gurr, D., Drysdale, L. and B. Moreno (Eds) Educational Leadership in a Turbulent Era, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing. (In press)

Media enquiries

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