Dr Ellen Bishop
- Civic Imaginaries Research Associate (Urban Studies & Social Policy)
email:
Ellen.Bishop@glasgow.ac.uk
pronouns:
She/her/hers
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0768-5909Biography
Dr Ellen Bishop is a Research Associate at University of Glasgow working on a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship funded project on Civic Imaginary Partnerships, with Dr Michael Howcroft (PI). Civic imaginaries are the ways that people think, feel and dream about the futures of their places. The research project brings together communities, policymakers, researchers and artists from Chester, Frome, Glasgow, Hull and Southampton to ask what being civic means in the United Kingdom right now, and playfully considers how people collectively reimagine and reinvent their places.
Ellen completed her PhD at the University of Leicester in 2022, funded by the ESRC Midlands Graduate School DTP. Her thesis examined the geographies of secondary school students who speak English as an additional language (EAL).
Prior to joining the University of Glasgow, Ellen was a Research Associate on the ESRC funded project ‘The School Meals Service: Past, Present – and Future?’ based at the University of Wolverhampton, working on contemporary ethnographies of school meals in four partner schools. Ellen was also previously an Associate Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University on the BSc Geography and BSc Human Geography courses. Ellen has also previously worked as a Postdoctoral Innovation Associate, where she disseminated her PhD findings to schools through CPD sessions and resources to support EAL students, and as a Research Assistant on a digital literacy project, both at the University of Leicester.
Ellen is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Ellen is an Affiliated Researcher of the University of Glasgow Centre for Public Policy.
Research interests
- Place/ place-making
- Civic imaginaries
- Spatialities
- Children's geographies
- Geographies of education
- Educational inequalities
- English as an additional language
- Food geographies
- Ethnographic methods
- Creative methods
Research groups
Publications
2025
Singh Lalli, Gurpinder and Bishop, Ellen 
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0768-5909
(2025)
Schools and food.
In: Holloway, Lewis, Goodman, Michael K., Maye, Damian, Kneafsey, Moya, Sexton, Alexandra E. and Moragues-Faus, Ana (eds.)
Elgar Encyclopedia of Food and Society.
Series: Elgar encyclopedias in the social sciences series.
Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 433-434.
(doi: 10.4337/9781800887435.00111)
Book Sections
Singh Lalli, Gurpinder and Bishop, Ellen ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0768-5909
(2025)
Schools and food.
In: Holloway, Lewis, Goodman, Michael K., Maye, Damian, Kneafsey, Moya, Sexton, Alexandra E. and Moragues-Faus, Ana (eds.)
Elgar Encyclopedia of Food and Society.
Series: Elgar encyclopedias in the social sciences series.
Edward Elgar Publishing, pp. 433-434.
(doi: 10.4337/9781800887435.00111)
Prior publications
Article
Ellen Bishop, Isabelle Carter, Heather Ellis, Gurpinder Lalli, Gary McCulloch, Laura Newman (2025) The UK School Meals Service 1944–Present: A Sensory and Emotional Experience History of Education Crossref. (doi: 10.1080/0046760X.2025.2564358)
Ellen Bishop (2023) EAL Pupils and the spatial organisation of classrooms EAL Journal Ellen Bishop.
Ellen Bishop (2022) Book Review: Right where we belong: how refugee teachers and students are changing the future of education Educational Review Ellen Bishop. ISSN 1465-3397 (doi: 10.1080/00131911.2022.2147293)
(2022) Child protective services during COVID-19 and doubly marginalized children: International perspectives Child Abuse & Neglect Ellen Bishop. ISSN 0145-2134 (doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2022.105634)
(2021) The power of peers in GTA development of practice: evaluation of an equal-status teaching observation project Compass: Journal of Learning and Teaching Ellen Bishop. ISSN 2044-0073 (doi: 10.21100/compass.v14i2.1203)
Book Section
Ellen Bishop, Lucy Manners (2023) Diversity, demographics and sense of place Crossref. (doi: 10.4324/9781003386162-21)
Website
Ellen Bishop (2022) 2021 census shows English decreasing as main language but masks England and Wales’ true diversity The Conversation Ellen Bishop.
Teaching
Ellen teaches on the module 'Youth, Policy and Welfare: Cross-Cultural Perspectives' (PUBPOL 4042), Level 4 (SCQF level 10). She also supervises Masters student dissertations in Urban Studies and Social Policy.
