Dr Emma Macleod-Johnstone

I've worked in publishing, advertising, marketing and public relations, and specialised in crisis management and corporate identity for large international organisations. All this evolved into an abiding deep interest and involvement in human relationships, working with trauma, and counselling and psychotherapeutic work. Also, power and politics and the complexities and dynamics of individual and collective inter-relationships. My doctoral thesis was all about these very things. 

Being human is a lifelong project of perpetual challenge and change and continuous learning. Hence my teaching practice over the last three decades has been very much focused on the personal -professional development of students and learning communities, 'engaged pedagogy', and with an interest in all gender matters, feminist theories, teaching and research practices, together with the complex issues of love, kindness, vulnerability, transformation, and wellbeing. 

I continue to work as a practicing counsellor working with Jungian psychology.

Qualifications

I gained my doctorate in 2013 from Sheffield University. My doctoral thesis: 'Myths, Madness, and Mourning in the Halls of Academe' was about the complexities of individual and collective trauma in times of extreme change and challenge within Higher Education, as well as collectives in general - e.g. families.  I used dreams and dreaming as my methods within a Jungian analytical framework. 

The key areas addressed: Phenomena of collective madness and cultural psychoses; practices of ir/responsible care; fairy tales, folklore, and personal/family/organisations' myths; Higher Education policies, practices, and cultures.  

Teaching interests

I supervise MA Education dissertations, and PhD students and I am currently a co-Programme Lead for the BA Education (with Foundation) - working with one of the best teams ones could wish for.

I module lead:

Introduction to Critical Questions in Education

Independent Study Project: Beginning Research Matters

Introduction to Work-Based Learning

Gender and Difference

Wellbeing and Education

Children and Stories 

Research interests

Myths and Fairy Tales to understand contemporary cultural phenomena in Education

Gender politics, privilege and oppression

The Body Politic and Body Personal aspects of Wellbeing and Wellness

Therapeutic relationships and supporting students in their personal/professional development

Currently developing two papers: 

'Kindness and Vulnerability as teaching methods' - the gift of ineptitude in teacher-student relationships

'Working with the legacies of Pandora and Eve in patriarchal institutions' 

Other research

'Open Fields of Possibilities: Alternative Assessment Practices in HE' with Jerome Satterthwaite, BERA, Herriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, 2003

Sikes, P. & Macleod-Johnstone, E. (2008) ‘’A girl like me?’: Storied reflections on social class identities, aspirations, misconceptions and experiences’, Auto/biography Yearbook pp. 40 – 54

'A Tale of Two Stories: becoming through the layers of ‘living texts’ present and absent', DPR Conference, Greenwich University, 2010

'Emotions and affect; exchange and change', DPR Conference, University of Greenwich, 2014

''Stepping Through the Daylight Gate: researching troubling knowledge in Higher Education', Troubling Research Conference, Newman University, Birmingham, 2016

'Using dreams as a research method to trouble un/conscious discourses in education', Methodological Innovations Conference, University of Plymouth, 2018

Joanna Haynes & Emma Macleod-Johnstone (2017) Stepping through the daylight gate: compassionate spaces for learning in higher education, Pastoral Care in Education, 35:3, 179-191,

Review of Children’s literature (Second Edition), Journal of Education for Teaching, 2015, 41:5, 612-613

Research degrees awarded to supervised students

I have, and continue to, supervise students on the BA Education, The MA Education, and PhDs in the Plymouth Institute of Education, as well as the Faculty of Health. 

Conferences organised

I was part of the founding team, with Jerome Satterthwaite, who set up and ran the annual conferences and publications for DPR (Discourse, Power, and Resistance) in the early 2000's.  The conferences began with a focus on the social, economic, political and cultural forces that shape education policy and practice world-wide. It continues to remain an annual conference in this country, as well as different off shoots having been run in the Caribbean, Portugal, and elsewhere. 

Other academic activities

I am a member of the PIoE Ethics Committee; Staff Development Committee, and I was part of the team which helped the department gain it's Athena SWAN Bronze Award for greater gender equity in HE. 

Additional information

I have a cat. Nothing like being owned by a feline to be reminded of clear boundaries, one's dispensability, and the fallibility of being a mere human.