Dr Jennifer Farrar

  • Senior Lecturer (Pedagogy, Praxis & Faith)

telephone: 0141 330 3434
email: Jennifer.Farrar@glasgow.ac.uk

room 631, St Andrews Building, 11 Eldon Street

Import to contacts

ORCID iDhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-7128-6355

Biography

I am a specialist in children’s literature and literacies with a background in secondary English teaching. My ESRC funded doctoral research from the University of Glasgow (2017) was an exploration of intergenerational readers’ responses to the disruptive effects of metafiction in picturebooks, with a particular focus on their critically literate potential. I also have an MEd in Children's Literature and Literacies from the University of Glasgow and an undergraduate degree (MA Hons) in English Literature. 

Before coming to initial teacher education, I worked as a secondary English teacher, with experience of state schools in both London and Edinburgh. Prior to that, I worked as an education journalist in London.  

I am currently researching student teachers’ knowledge and use of children’s literature, and am also working on ways to raise Scottish teacher and policy makers’ awareness and understandings of critical literacy and its potential in the classroom and beyond. 

Research interests

My research interests include: critical literacy, children's literature, non-fiction, metafiction, family literacies and home-school relationships, pedagogies for literacy teaching, picturebooks and initial teacher education. 

I welcome enquiries from students and colleagues with research interests in these fields.

Publications

List by: Type | Date

Jump to: 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014
Number of items: 32.

2024

McKinney, S. J. and Farrar, J. (2024) Role models for the future? The evolving dialogue on minority ethnic teachers in 21st century Scotland. In: Race, R. (ed.) Evolving Dialogues in Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education. Open University, pp. 273-288. ISBN 9780335250578

2023

Farrar, J. and Simpson, A. (2023) Pre-service teacher knowledge of children's literature and attitudes to Reading for Pleasure: an international comparative study. Literacy, (doi: 10.1111/lit.12360) (Early Online Publication)

McKinney, S. and Farrar, J. (2023) The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, Poverty and Education Symposium. Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) Conference, Edinburgh, UK, 22-24 Nov 2023.

Govender, N. and Farrar, J. (2023) Introduction to critical literacies & social media. English in Education, 57(4), pp. 252-261. (doi: 10.1080/04250494.2023.2268401)

Farrar, J. (2023) Forging Hope Creatively: Supporting Possibility Thinking with Contemporary Children’s Literature. Sheffield Literacies and Language Conference: Forging Hopeful Literacies, Sheffield, UK, 16-17 June 2023.

McKinney, S. J. and Farrar, J. (2023) The impact of armed conflict on school education. Educazione Interculturale, 21(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.6092/issn.2420-8175/16970)

Farrar, J. and Stone, K. (2023) Early language and literacy development. In: Carroll, M. and Wingrave, M. (eds.) Childhood Practice: A Reflective and Evidence-based Approach. SAGE: London, pp. 123-134. ISBN 9781529777772; 9781529777765 (pbk)

Morrison-Love, D. et al. (2023) Camau i'r Dyfodol: Curriculum for Wales: evolving understandings of progression in learning. Project Report. University of Glasgow and University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Farrar, J. , Eichorn, J., Britton, A., Anderson, S. K. and McKinney, S. (2023) Developing Politically Literate Young Citizens in Scottish Education: Barriers and Opportunities. Project Report. University of Glasgow, UK.

2022

Dickson, B. , Farrar, J. , Mclaren, E. and Smith, C. (2022) Voices Across the Decade: A Review of One School-University Partnership. Scottish Educational Research Association Annual Conference (SERA 2022), Ayr, UK, 23-25 Nov 2022.

Farrar, J. and McColl, M. (2022) ‘Meet my mentor’ – the student teacher’s view. In: Eady, S., Essex, J., Livingston, K. and McColl, M. (eds.) Mentoring Teachers in Scotland: a Practical Guide. Series: Mentoring trainee and early career teachers. Routledge, pp. 49-60. ISBN 9780367405984 (doi: 10.4324/9780429356957-6)

Farrar, J. (2022) Mediating with metafiction: rethinking what counts about reading with parents, using picturebooks. In: Hagen, A. M. (ed.) Mediation and Children's Reading: Relationships, Intervention, and Organization from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Series: Studies in Text and Print Culture. Lehigh University Press. ISBN 9781611463262

2021

Farrar, J. and Proudfoot, K. (2021) Becoming a teacher. Teaching Scotland, 90, p. 5.

Farrar, J. , Stone, K. and Hazzard, D. (2021) Critical literacies work in the United Kingdom. In: Pandya, J. Z., Mora, R. A., Alford, J. H., Golden, N. A. and de Roock, R. S. (eds.) The Handbook of Critical Literacies. Routledge: London, pp. 237-244. ISBN 9780367902605 (doi: 10.4324/9781003023425-27)

Farrar, J. (2021) “I don’t really have a reason to read children’s literature”: enquiring into primary student teachers’ knowledge of children’s literature. Journal of Literary Education, 4, pp. 217-236. (doi: 10.7203/JLE.4.21060)

Stone, K. and Farrar, J. (2021) Advancing an LGBTI-inclusive curriculum in Scotland through critical literacy. Improving Schools, 24(2), pp. 99-111. (doi: 10.1177/1365480220943322)

Gormally, S. , Boath, L. , Farrar, J. , Martin, H. and Nicholson, J. (2021) Disrupting Boundaries to Build Bridges. Crossing Boundaries and Building Bridges: ICSEI Virtual Congress 2021, 8-9, 17-18 Mar 2021.

Farrar, J. , Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J.E. (2021) Challenging picturebooks and literacy studies. In: Ommundsen, Å. M., Haaland, G. and Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (eds.) Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education: International Perspectives on Language and Literature Learning. Routledge: London. ISBN 9780367856250

2020

Farrar, J. (2020) Encounters with metafiction: playing with ideas of what counts when it comes to reading. In: Deszcz-Tryhubczak, J. and Kalla, I. B. (eds.) Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature. Routledge: London, pp. 179-190. ISBN 9780367501433

2019

Farrar, J. and Stone, K. (2019) Silenced by the gaps? The status of critical literacy in Scotland’s curriculum for excellence. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 18(3), pp. 335-350. (doi: 10.1108/ETPC-03-2019-0041)

2018

Stone, K. and Farrar, J. (2018) "I read it so it must be true"... Teaching Scotland, 72, pp. 28-30.

McAdam, J. and Farrar, J. (2018) Childhood and diversity. In: Carroll, M. and McCulloch, M. (eds.) Understanding Teaching and Learning in Primary Education [second edition]. SAGE: London. ISBN 9781526421173

2017

Arizpe, E. , Farrar, J. and McAdam, J. (2017) Picturebooks and literacy studies. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Series: Routledge literature companions. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, pp. 371-380. ISBN 9781138853188

Farrar, J. (2017) A review of Seeing Things: A Kid’s Guide to Looking at Photographs, by Meyerowitz. Notes, 2, [Book Review]

Farrar, J. (2017) Playful Texts and the Emergent Reader: Developing Metalinguistic Awareness by Anne Plummer. Children's Literature, 45(1), pp. 255-260. (doi: 10.1353/chl.2017.0013)[Book Review]

2016

Farrar, J. (2016) New case studies of children responding to picturebooks: case 3. In: Arizpe, E. and Syles, M. (eds.) Children Reading Picturebooks: Interpreting Visual Texts. Routledge: London, pp. 159-168. ISBN 9781138014077

Farrar, J. (2016) “That poor Bear!” Readers’ responses (and resistance) to metafiction in No Bears. In: Scherer, G. and Volz, S. (eds.) Im Bildungsfokus: Bilderbuchrezeptionsforschung. Series: KOLA: Koblenz-Landauer Studien zu Geistes-, Kultur- und Bildungswissenschaften (15). Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier: Trier, pp. 187-204. ISBN 9783868216547

2015

Farrar, J. (2015) Review of: Eric Toshalis (2015) Make Me! Understanding and Engaging Student Resistance in School, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. [Website]

Farrar, J. (2015) Draw out imagination with a picturebook. Times Educational Supplement,

Farrar, J. (2015) Exploring creativity through a picturebook. Teaching Scotland, 59, pp. 52-53.

2014

McAdam, J. E. , Arizpe, E. , Devlin, A.M. , Farrell, M. and Farrar, J. (2014) Journeys from Images to Words. Project Report. Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

McAdam, J. E. and Farrar, J. (2014) Narratives of change: creating a community of inquiry using drama. Netla: Veftimarit um Uppeldi og Menntun,

This list was generated on Fri Apr 19 00:16:53 2024 BST.
Jump to: Articles | Book Sections | Book Reviews | Research Reports or Papers | Conference or Workshop Item | Website
Number of items: 32.

Articles

Farrar, J. and Simpson, A. (2023) Pre-service teacher knowledge of children's literature and attitudes to Reading for Pleasure: an international comparative study. Literacy, (doi: 10.1111/lit.12360) (Early Online Publication)

Govender, N. and Farrar, J. (2023) Introduction to critical literacies & social media. English in Education, 57(4), pp. 252-261. (doi: 10.1080/04250494.2023.2268401)

McKinney, S. J. and Farrar, J. (2023) The impact of armed conflict on school education. Educazione Interculturale, 21(1), pp. 1-10. (doi: 10.6092/issn.2420-8175/16970)

Farrar, J. and Proudfoot, K. (2021) Becoming a teacher. Teaching Scotland, 90, p. 5.

Farrar, J. (2021) “I don’t really have a reason to read children’s literature”: enquiring into primary student teachers’ knowledge of children’s literature. Journal of Literary Education, 4, pp. 217-236. (doi: 10.7203/JLE.4.21060)

Stone, K. and Farrar, J. (2021) Advancing an LGBTI-inclusive curriculum in Scotland through critical literacy. Improving Schools, 24(2), pp. 99-111. (doi: 10.1177/1365480220943322)

Farrar, J. and Stone, K. (2019) Silenced by the gaps? The status of critical literacy in Scotland’s curriculum for excellence. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 18(3), pp. 335-350. (doi: 10.1108/ETPC-03-2019-0041)

Stone, K. and Farrar, J. (2018) "I read it so it must be true"... Teaching Scotland, 72, pp. 28-30.

Farrar, J. (2015) Draw out imagination with a picturebook. Times Educational Supplement,

Farrar, J. (2015) Exploring creativity through a picturebook. Teaching Scotland, 59, pp. 52-53.

McAdam, J. E. and Farrar, J. (2014) Narratives of change: creating a community of inquiry using drama. Netla: Veftimarit um Uppeldi og Menntun,

Book Sections

McKinney, S. J. and Farrar, J. (2024) Role models for the future? The evolving dialogue on minority ethnic teachers in 21st century Scotland. In: Race, R. (ed.) Evolving Dialogues in Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education. Open University, pp. 273-288. ISBN 9780335250578

Farrar, J. and Stone, K. (2023) Early language and literacy development. In: Carroll, M. and Wingrave, M. (eds.) Childhood Practice: A Reflective and Evidence-based Approach. SAGE: London, pp. 123-134. ISBN 9781529777772; 9781529777765 (pbk)

Farrar, J. and McColl, M. (2022) ‘Meet my mentor’ – the student teacher’s view. In: Eady, S., Essex, J., Livingston, K. and McColl, M. (eds.) Mentoring Teachers in Scotland: a Practical Guide. Series: Mentoring trainee and early career teachers. Routledge, pp. 49-60. ISBN 9780367405984 (doi: 10.4324/9780429356957-6)

Farrar, J. (2022) Mediating with metafiction: rethinking what counts about reading with parents, using picturebooks. In: Hagen, A. M. (ed.) Mediation and Children's Reading: Relationships, Intervention, and Organization from the Eighteenth Century to the Present. Series: Studies in Text and Print Culture. Lehigh University Press. ISBN 9781611463262

Farrar, J. , Stone, K. and Hazzard, D. (2021) Critical literacies work in the United Kingdom. In: Pandya, J. Z., Mora, R. A., Alford, J. H., Golden, N. A. and de Roock, R. S. (eds.) The Handbook of Critical Literacies. Routledge: London, pp. 237-244. ISBN 9780367902605 (doi: 10.4324/9781003023425-27)

Farrar, J. , Arizpe, E. and McAdam, J.E. (2021) Challenging picturebooks and literacy studies. In: Ommundsen, Å. M., Haaland, G. and Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (eds.) Exploring Challenging Picturebooks in Education: International Perspectives on Language and Literature Learning. Routledge: London. ISBN 9780367856250

Farrar, J. (2020) Encounters with metafiction: playing with ideas of what counts when it comes to reading. In: Deszcz-Tryhubczak, J. and Kalla, I. B. (eds.) Rulers of Literary Playgrounds: Politics of Intergenerational Play in Children’s Literature. Routledge: London, pp. 179-190. ISBN 9780367501433

McAdam, J. and Farrar, J. (2018) Childhood and diversity. In: Carroll, M. and McCulloch, M. (eds.) Understanding Teaching and Learning in Primary Education [second edition]. SAGE: London. ISBN 9781526421173

Arizpe, E. , Farrar, J. and McAdam, J. (2017) Picturebooks and literacy studies. In: Kümmerling-Meibauer, B. (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Series: Routledge literature companions. Routledge: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, pp. 371-380. ISBN 9781138853188

Farrar, J. (2016) New case studies of children responding to picturebooks: case 3. In: Arizpe, E. and Syles, M. (eds.) Children Reading Picturebooks: Interpreting Visual Texts. Routledge: London, pp. 159-168. ISBN 9781138014077

Farrar, J. (2016) “That poor Bear!” Readers’ responses (and resistance) to metafiction in No Bears. In: Scherer, G. and Volz, S. (eds.) Im Bildungsfokus: Bilderbuchrezeptionsforschung. Series: KOLA: Koblenz-Landauer Studien zu Geistes-, Kultur- und Bildungswissenschaften (15). Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier: Trier, pp. 187-204. ISBN 9783868216547

Book Reviews

Farrar, J. (2017) A review of Seeing Things: A Kid’s Guide to Looking at Photographs, by Meyerowitz. Notes, 2, [Book Review]

Farrar, J. (2017) Playful Texts and the Emergent Reader: Developing Metalinguistic Awareness by Anne Plummer. Children's Literature, 45(1), pp. 255-260. (doi: 10.1353/chl.2017.0013)[Book Review]

Research Reports or Papers

Morrison-Love, D. et al. (2023) Camau i'r Dyfodol: Curriculum for Wales: evolving understandings of progression in learning. Project Report. University of Glasgow and University of Wales Trinity Saint David.

Farrar, J. , Eichorn, J., Britton, A., Anderson, S. K. and McKinney, S. (2023) Developing Politically Literate Young Citizens in Scottish Education: Barriers and Opportunities. Project Report. University of Glasgow, UK.

McAdam, J. E. , Arizpe, E. , Devlin, A.M. , Farrell, M. and Farrar, J. (2014) Journeys from Images to Words. Project Report. Esmée Fairbairn Foundation.

Conference or Workshop Item

McKinney, S. and Farrar, J. (2023) The Impact of Armed Conflict on Children, Poverty and Education Symposium. Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) Conference, Edinburgh, UK, 22-24 Nov 2023.

Farrar, J. (2023) Forging Hope Creatively: Supporting Possibility Thinking with Contemporary Children’s Literature. Sheffield Literacies and Language Conference: Forging Hopeful Literacies, Sheffield, UK, 16-17 June 2023.

Dickson, B. , Farrar, J. , Mclaren, E. and Smith, C. (2022) Voices Across the Decade: A Review of One School-University Partnership. Scottish Educational Research Association Annual Conference (SERA 2022), Ayr, UK, 23-25 Nov 2022.

Gormally, S. , Boath, L. , Farrar, J. , Martin, H. and Nicholson, J. (2021) Disrupting Boundaries to Build Bridges. Crossing Boundaries and Building Bridges: ICSEI Virtual Congress 2021, 8-9, 17-18 Mar 2021.

Website

Farrar, J. (2015) Review of: Eric Toshalis (2015) Make Me! Understanding and Engaging Student Resistance in School, Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. [Website]

This list was generated on Fri Apr 19 00:16:53 2024 BST.

Grants

2019-: Developing Politically Literate Young Citizens in Scottish Education: Barriers and Opportunities, funded by the Gordon Cook Foundation (£40,000).

Supervision

Under supervision: 

Natalie Naihuei Hsie: Young Adult Literature and Intercultural Encountering

Evangelia Dimitropoulaki: Disrupting the Universe: Exploring the Potential of Young Adult Literature in secondary classrooms in Scotland.

Dorothy Munro: An analysis of the impact of cross-curricular incorporation of metaphor awareness as a tool for enhanced literacy in the English classroom and other secondary school subjects.

Fuling Deng: Teaching and Learning with Picturebooks: Developing multimodal litreacy with a commuity of primary school teachers in China.

Herdiana Hakim: The Power and Potential of Multicultural Literature in A Diverse Archipelago: Multiculturalism in Indonesian Children’s Books, Children’s Responses, and Teachers’ Perspectives

 

I have also supervised a wide range of MEd and MSc dissertations in Educational Studies and Children's Literature, both MEd and Erasmus Mundus CLMC. 

  • Deng, Fuling
    Teaching and Learning with Picturebooks: developing multimodal literacy with a community of primary school teachers in China.
  • Hsieh, Natalie Naihuei
    Encountering Windows and Mirrors in the Diaspora: Using Young Adult literature to explore the stories and counter-stories of East Asian young persons

Julian Lui: An Exploration of Pedagogy Implication for Oracy Demands in Higher Education and ESL (English as a Second Language) Students. (Completed 2021) 

Dobrochna Futro: Translanguaging art: Multilingual practices of contemporary artists and their implications for language pedagogy. (Completed 2023)

 

Teaching

I am currently the School of Education's interim Director for Initial Teacher Education and Undergraduate. For four years, I led the the PGDE Primary and Secondary programme. I was also the Programme Leader for the MSc Education (online) for three years. I teach across a wide range of undergraduate and post-graduate courses in the School of Education, including: 

  • Language and Literacy: MEduc Year 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and PDGE Primary and Secondary
  • Children's Literature elective (MEduc Year 3)
  • Culture, Arts and the Humanities elective (MEduc Year4)
  • Texts for Children and Young People  (CLL and Erasmus IMCLMC)

I have been a School Experience Placement tutor for MEduc Year 3 and 4 and PGDE students. I am fully GTCS registered. I supervise a wide range of M-level and doctoral students.

Professional activities & recognition

Prizes, awards & distinctions

  • 2013: Winner, William Boyd Prize for Education (University of Glasgow)
  • 2018: Winner, Estelle Brisard Prize for Early Career Researcher (Scottish Educational Research Association)
  • 2019: Highly commended (BERA Doctoral Thesis Prize)
  • 2021: Winner, Outstanding Contribution to Teaching (University of Glasgow Student Teaching Awards)
  • 2021: Winner, College of Social Sciences Team award, Children's Literature and Literacies (University of Glasgow Teaching Excellence Awards)

Editorial boards

  • 2021: Literacy, UKLA
  • 2021: Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice
  • 2023: The Reading Teacher

Professional & learned societies

  • 2007: , General Teaching Council for Scotland
  • 2019: SIG co-convener, Member of UKLA National Committee, United Kingdom Literacy Association

Selected international presentations

  • 2021: "Researching Reading for Pleasure Practices in Initial Teacher Education: An International Comparative Study" (University of Geneva (online))
  • 2020: “I prefer to read books at my level”: An enquiry into student teachers’ perspectives of Children’s Literature Fostering Dialogue: Teaching Children’s Literature at University, University of Padua, Italy. (University of Padua (online))
  • 2020: Reading between the lines: What's critical about literacy in the CfE? University of Strathclyde Seminar Series, Glasgow (University of Strathclyde)
  • 2019: ‘Student teachers’ knowledge of Children’s Literature: some preliminary findings’, UKLA Primary English in Initial Teacher Education Special Interest Group (Open University, London)
  • 2019: ‘Repositioning Readers Through Metafiction: Disrupting notions of ‘what counts’ as reading in the early years’, AHRC-funded Children’s Literature Colloquium (University of Newcastle)
  • 2018: ‘Playing about with picturebooks – and power: Towards a decolonization of reading relationships between adults and young children, A Child’s World Conference, (University of Aberystwyth)
  • 2018: Conversations about critical literacy: what it is, what it looks like, what it could be’, UKLA In-ternational Conference (UKLA, Cardiff)
  • 2018: Tools for multicultural reading: the potential of children’s literature in culturally diverse class-rooms, British Council funded Workshop on Multicultural Education (Mahidol University, Thailand)
  • 2016: Challenging picturebooks; challenging assumptions’, SERA Conference (SERA, University of Dundee)
  • 2016: ‘Parents mediating picturebooks: An exploration of “what counts” when reading words and pictures’, Mediating Children’s Reading’, The RSE Susan Manning workshop, The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities. (University of Edinburgh)
  • 2015: ‘But is it critical literacy?’ Exploring ‘what counts’ in pupils’ and parents’ responses to metafiction in picturebooks'. (The University of Koblenz Landau and The University of Heidelberg, Germany)
  • 2015: ‘Disrupting ‘what counts’ as reading: the power and potential of picturebooks’, The Child and the Book Conference. (The University of Aviero, Portugal)
  • 2014: ‘Narratives of Change: Creating a Community of Inquiry Using Drama’, Diverse Teachers for Diverse Learners Conference. (University of Strathclyde)

Additional information

Thesis

Blog

Podcasts & webinars

External Examining

External Examiner, PDGE Secondary, University of Edinburgh, 2020 - present.
External Examiner, MA Outdoor Education, University of Worcester, 2020 - present.

 


Jennifer Farrar