Carol Mutch

Carol Mutch, originally from the West Coast, began her career as a primary teacher in Canterbury and Otago, with a stint as an exchange teacher in Canada. It was a natural step from teaching to becoming a teacher educator at the Christchurch College of Education. Her time there afforded her many opportunities including: working with pre-service and in-service teachers; upgrading her qualifications; taking on leadership roles; researching; publishing; attending conferences; and serving on the boards of national and international journals and organisations. The Pacific Circle Consortium awarded her the Peter Brice Award for Intercultural Understanding for her research into citizenship education in the Asia-Pacific, and made her a life member to recognise her 25 years of service. 

Carol's masters and doctoral studies focused on curriculum development and her doctorate was placed on the Academic Excellence list at Griffith University. In 2005, she received the Critical Issues in Curriculum Special Interest Group's Early Career Award from the American Educational Research Association (AERA). Following the College's merger with Canterbury University, Carol took a break from academia and worked as a Senior Advisor to the Chief Review Officer at ERO, before taking up her current position at the University of Auckland, where she served a three-year term as Head of School for Critical Studies in Education.

Carol's teaching, researching and writing reflects her diverse interests and experiences. Always with a passion for questioning the status quo, and with social justice at its heart, she has explored the social studies curriculum, citizenship education, curriculum development, and educational history, policy and practice. She has developed a strong interest in research and evaluation methodologies, and in mentoring new researchers and academics. Sharing an office in the PGC building at the time of the Canterbury earthquakes has meant that she has put her diverse skills and experiences to good use to research and advocate for the role of schools in disaster response and recovery. This has taken her to conduct fieldwork further afield in Victorian bushfire communities, Japanese cities recovering from the 2011 tsunami, schools in Nepal after the 2015 earthquake, and post-cyclone damaged villages in Vanuatu. 

Carol has always been actively engaged in academic writing, reviewing, editing and publishing. She sits on the editorial boards of New Zealand journals Curriculum Matters (editor for five years),  Evaluation Matters, and the New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies (for which she also served as chair of the editorial board for a term). She sits on a further five international boards, and has edited special issues for Citizenship, Social and Economics Education, The International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, and Pastoral Care in Education and Disaster Prevention and Management. 

She is the author and editor of five books, including the best-selling Doing educational research: a practitioner's guide to getting started (NZCER Press, 2005/2013), Optimising your academic career: Advice for early career scholars (NZCER Press, 2017), and Emerging critical scholarship: Navigating the doctoral journey (Cambridge Scholars Press, 2014, with Jean Rath). Emerging critical scholarship: Navigating the doctoral journey was shortlisted for the AERA qualitative book award. She is the author of a further 70 academic articles or book chapters covering her wide range of research interests. She is a frequent conference presenter and is often invited to present keynotes or plenaries. Her current focus is publishing and disseminating the findings from her disaster research — a challenge that will keep her busy for some time.  

Contact

Email: c.mutch@auckland.ac.nz

University of Auckland website: http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/people/profile/c-mutch

NZCER Press publications

Book: Understanding enduring ideas in education: A response to those who 'just want to be a teacher'
Year published: 2017
ISBN: 978-1-98-854211-9
Edited by: Jennifer Tatebe and Carol Mutch

Article: Children researching their own experiences: Lessons from the Canterbury earthquakes
Year published: 2017
Journal issue: set 2017: no.2
Author: Carol Mutch

Book: Optimising your academic career: Advice for early career scholars
Year published: 2017
ISBN: 978-0-947509-75-0
Author: Carol Mutch

Book: Doing Educational Research (2nd ed.) 
Year published: 2013
ISBN: 978-1-927151-92-1
Author: Carol Mutch

Article: Editorial: Curriculum change and teacher resistance​ 
Year published: 2012
ISBN: 978-1-927151-92-1
Author: Carol Mutch

Article: Editorial: Crisis, curriculum and citizenship​ 
Year published: 2011
Journal issue: Curriculum Matters 7: 2011
Author: Carol Mutch

Article: Editorial: Knowledge and the curriculum 
Year published: 2010
Journal issue: Curriculum Matters 6 : 2010
Author: Carol Mutch    

Article: Editorial: Curriculum: What, how and for whom? 
Year published: 2009
Journal issue: Curriculum Matters 5 : 2009
Author: Carol Mutch

Book: Challenging the Notion of "Other": Reframing Research in the Aotearoa New Zealand Context​ 
Year published: 2006
ISBN: 1-877398-18-7
Edited by: Carol Mutch

Article: Citizenship education: does it have a place in the curriculum?​ 
Year published: 2005
Journal issue: Curriculum Matters 7: 2011
Author: Carol Mutch