About
Research
Biography
Stephen Parker is Professor of Education at St Mary’s. His research explores the multiple ways in which values interact with and shape public life, especially through education. Drawing on historical, policy, and philosophical perspectives, his work examines how schooling and the curriculum transmits worldviews and shapes the moral and spiritual lives of children, over time
Formed as a theologian then historian of education and religion, Stephen’s earlier scholarship traced the interplay between churches, the state, and the changing religious landscape of Britain and Ireland across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This historical grounding continues to inform his broader interest in how values are articulated, negotiated, and embedded within educational policy and practice today. Alongside this, he has developed distinctive research strands on religious broadcasting, RE teacher professionalisation, childhood and religion, and asceticism and teacher wellbeing, bringing theological, historical, and philosophical perspectives into conversation with contemporary educational concerns.
Before joining St Mary’s in 2023, Stephen held a personal Chair in Religion and Education at the University of Worcester for ten years. For his first two years at St Mary’s, Stephen was Director of the Centre for Catholic Education, Research and Religious History. His prior professional background spanned primary, secondary, and post-16 education, alongside roles as a diocesan RE adviser and university lecturer in Theology and Religious Studies.
Stephen has led or contributed to numerous externally funded research projects totalling over half a million pounds. His large Leverhulme Trust funded project, Faith on the Air, investigated the role of public service broadcasting in shaping public perceptions of religion and education over generations. The project’s substantive findings will be published in his forthcoming monograph, Religious Education: A Broadcasting History (Oxford University Press). He has recently co-edited Sustaining Cathedrals: Sacred Space and Common Ground (Routledge, 2025), which introduces the emerging field of cathedral studies and explores the role of sacred spaces as shared civic and cultural institutions.
At St Mary’s, Stephen currently serves as Associate Head of the School of Education, supporting strategic research development and leading preparations for the School’s REF 2029 submission.
External roles
Professor Parker is Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed Journal of Beliefs and Values: Studies in Religion and Education. He serves on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Educational Studies, Practical Theology, and Religions, and is a trustee of the Society for Educational Studies. He also edits the Brill Research Perspectives series on Religion and Education and Peter Lang’s series on Religion, Education, and Values.
He is a past President of the History of Education Society (UK), has served on the AHRC Peer Review College for over a decade, and is a Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society (elected 2006) and the Royal Society of Arts (elected 2014).
Teaching
Stephen teaches across postgraduate and professional programmes. He is Course Leader for the MBA (Executive Leadership in Catholic Education), a pioneering programme that integrates values-based leadership, strategic educational development, and sector-specific insights for leaders in Catholic education. He also contributes to doctoral supervision, researcher training, and leadership development.
Doctoral supervision
Stephen has supervised eleven doctoral research studies to completion. He welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral students in areas related to:
- Values, leadership, and educational policy
- Historical perspectives on religion and education (19th–20th centuries)
- Education, media, and the shaping of public discourse
- Technology and education in historical perspective.
- Childhood and religion
- Cultural institutions (e.g. museums, cathedrals, civic spaces) and informal education
- Asceticism, teacher wellbeing, and vocational formation
- International and comparative histories of education
- Post-secular religious education.
Research
Research profile
Research interests
Stephen’s research brings historical insight into conversation with contemporary educational leadership and policy, with a focus on:
- Values, education, and leadership in contemporary contexts
- Educational policy, governance, and institutional cultures
- Childhood and religion
- Asceticism, teacher wellbeing, and vocational practice
- History of education (19th–20th centuries)
- Religion, broadcasting, and public education
- Comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to educational values
- Religious education.
Research funding
Stephen has successfully completed several externally funded research projects totalling more than £500,000, including:
- CEOs of Catholic Multi-Academy Trusts: Their Vocation, Experience and Accompaniment (Sisters of the Holy Cross)
- Faith on the Air: A Religious Educational Broadcasting History (Leverhulme Trust)
- The Hidden History of Curriculum Change in Religious Education in English Schools, 1969–1979 (British Academy)
- An Oral History of RE Teachers (Westhill Trust)
- The Worldviews and Values of 16–19 Year Olds (St Peter’s Saltley Trust).
Selected publications
Stephen has published extensively, including 2 monographs, 10 edited volumes, 20 book chapters, and more than 30 journal articles. Recent and forthcoming publications include:
Books
- Francis, L.J. and Parker, S.G. (eds) (2025) Sustaining Cathedrals: Sacred Space and Common Ground. Oxford: Routledge.
- Parker, S.G., Crutchley, J. and Roberts, S. (forthcoming) Religious Education: A Broadcasting History. Oxford: OUP.
- Parker, S.G. (2005) Faith on the Home Front: Aspects of Church Life and Popular Religion in Birmingham, 1939–1945. Oxford: Peter Lang.
Book chapters
- Francis, L.J. and Parker, S.G. (2025) ‘Introducing the Field of Cathedral Studies’ in Francis, L.J. and Parker, S.G. (eds) Sustaining Cathedrals: Sacred Space and Common Ground. Oxford: Routledge.
- Freathy, R. and Parker, S.G. (2023) ‘Insights from the history of the education of teachers of Religious Education in England. Subject specialists and specialization’ in Schweitzer, F., Freathy, R., Parker, S.G. and Simojoki, H.(eds) (2022) Improving Religious Education Through Teacher Training: experiences and insights from European countries, Munster: Waxmann
- Parker, S.G. (2023) ‘Religious Education and the Re-Christianization of Western Europe in the Long 1950s: A Missed Opportunity?’ in Lamberigts, M, Pizzey, A and Schelkens, K. eds.(2023) Vatican II after 60 years: developments and expectations prior to the Council, Belgium: Brepols.
- Parker, S.G. ‘Catholic Education’ in Harris, A. (2023) Oxford History of British and Irish Catholicism (Vol. IV) 1914-present. Oxford: OUP.
- Freathy, R. and Parker, S. G. (2021) ‘The Professionalization of Teachers of RE in England: A Case Study’ in Simojoki, H.; Schweitzer, F.; Henningsen, J., and Mautz, J-R. (2020). Professionalisierung des Religionslehrerberufs. Analysen im Schnittfeld von Lehrerbildung, Professionswissen und Professionspolitik. Leiden: Brill | Schöningh. pp. 501–527.
- Parker, S.G., Freathy, R. (2020) The Church of England and religious education during the twentieth century. In Rodger, T., Williamson, P., and Grimley, M. (eds) The Church of England and British Politics Since 1900. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer.
Journal articles
- Saunders, J., Cusack, A. and Parker, S.G. (in press) ‘Becoming “Simmarians”: The Beginnings of Catholic Teacher Education, Homosocial Community, and Student Formation at St Mary’s College, Hammersmith, c.1854–1914’, British Catholic History.
- Parker, S.G. (2021) ‘God is not dead in education, s/he never went away: beyond the secularization of the history of education’, Bildungsgeschichte, 2, 192–195.
- Parker, S.G., Allen, S. and Freathy, R. (2020) ‘The Church of England and the 1870 Education Act’, British Journal of Educational Studies, 68(5), 541–565.
- Doney, J., Parker, S.G. and Freathy, R.J.K. (2017) ‘Enriching the Historiography of Religious Education: Insights from Oral Life History’, History of Education, 46(4), 436–458.
- Parker, S.G., Freathy, R.J.K. (2012) ‘Ethnic Diversity, Christian Hegemony and the Emergence of Multi-Faith Religious Education in the 1970s’, History of Education, 41(3), 381–404.
- Parker, S.G. (2010) ‘“Teach them to pray, Auntie”: Children’s Hour Prayers at the BBC, 1940–1961’, History of Education, 39(5), 659–676.
Invited lectures and keynotes
- Catholic Record Society, Hinsley Hall, Leeds (July 2024): Catholic Education in a Time of Dissolution: Towards an Appraisal of the Contribution of Francis Drinkwater (1886–1982)
- Woolf Institute for Faith in Public Life, Wesley House, Cambridge (May 2024): Religious Education in the Bloom Review
- Scottish Church History Society, Edinburgh (March 2023): Differentiating Religious Broadcasting for Children and Youth in Scotland: Priorities and Personalities in the Radio Years
- KU Leuven, Belgium (March 2022): Religious Education and the Re-Christianization of Western Europe in the Long 1950s: A Missed Opportunity?
Full list of publications
For a full list of publications, see Stephen's ORCiD page.