Dr Ruth Wareham

School of Education
Lecturer in Philosophy of Education

Contact details

Email: r.j.wareham@bham.ac.uk

Address: School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Dr Ruth Wareham is a Lecturer in Philosophy of Education who joined the School of Education in September 2021. Prior to that, she was Education Campaigns Manager for Humanists UK, where she continues to work as an Education Policy Researcher.

Ruth’s primary research interests sit at the intersection between religion and education and she previously worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the Faith Schooling: Principles and Policy project at the University of Warwick. She is the co-author of How to Regulate Faith Schools (2018) with Matthew Clayton (University Warwick), Andrew Mason (University Warwick), and Adam Swift (UCL).

Before entering academia, Ruth qualified as a primary school teacher and worked in schools across Birmingham and the West Midlands for six years.

Ruth is on the Editorial Board for the IMPACT pamphlet series and the Executive Committee of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. She is a trustee of The Inclusive Education Trust (Accord).

Qualifications

PhD Philosophy of Education, University of Birmingham, 2018
PGCE Primary Education, National SCITT in Outstanding Primary Schools, University of Nottingham, 2005
MPhil Philosophy, University of Birmingham, 2004
BA (Hons) Philosophy, University of Birmingham, 2002

Biography

Dr Ruth Wareham is a Lecturer in Philosophy of Education who joined the Department for Education and Social Justice in September 2021. Prior to that, she was Education Campaigns Manager for Humanists UK, where she continues to work as an Education Policy Researcher.

Before entering academia, Ruth qualified as a primary school teacher and worked in schools across Birmingham and the West Midlands for six years.

Teaching

BA Education

Module Lead, Philosophy of Education (LC)
Course Lecturer, Ethics in Education (LI)
Course Lecturer, Equality & Diversity (LC)

Research

Ruth’s research predominantly focuses on philosophical issues at the intersection between religion, belief, and education, including how such issues should be approached by policy-makers.

Ruth also works as Education Policy Researcher for Humanists UK, where she has led on education policy since 2018.

Other activities

Ruth is an Executive Committee Member and Annual Conference Organiser for the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain. She was recently appointed to the Editorial Board of the IMPACT pamphlet series and is a trustee of the Inclusive Education Trust (Accord).

Ruth regularly speaks on issues relating to religion and education in the media. Highlights include appearances on Sunday Morning Live on BBC One, Radio 4’s Beyond Belief and Sunday programmes, and Channel 5’s Jeremy Vine show. Ruth is also frequently quoted in national and local newspapers, as well as in the education press. Recent examples include Schools Week, TES, the i, the Guardian, and the Sunday Times.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

Clayton, M, Mason, A, Swift, A & Wareham, R 2024, How to Think about Religious Schools: Principles and Policies. Oxford University Press, Oxford. https://doi.org/10.1093/9780198924036.001.0001

Article

Wareham, R 2024, 'Non-cognitive religious influence and initiation in Tillson’s ‘Children, Religion and the Ethics of Influence’', Journal of Philosophy of Education, vol. 58, no. 1, qhae008, pp. 108-119. https://doi.org/10.1093/jopedu/qhae008

Wareham, R 2024, 'Should Teachers Promote Vaccination?', Educational Theory.

Wareham, RJ 2023, 'Death knell or revival? Navigating religious education in the age of the non-religious', Journal of Religious Education, vol. 71, no. 3, pp. 225-238. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40839-023-00215-y

Wareham, RJ 2022, 'Achieving pluralism? A critical analysis of the inclusion of non-religious worldviews in RE policy in England and Wales after R (Fox) v Secretary of State for Education', British Journal of Religious Education, vol. 44, no. 4, pp. 455-471. https://doi.org/10.1080/01416200.2022.2027344

Wareham, R 2022, 'The problem with faith-based carve-outs: RSE policy, religion and educational goods', Journal of Philosophy of Education. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9752.12700

Clayton, M, Mason, A, Swift, A & Wareham, R 2021, 'The political morality of school composition: the case of religious selection', British Journal of Political Science, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 827-844. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0007123418000649

Wareham, R 2019, 'Indoctrination, delusion and the possibility of epistemic innocence', Theory and Research in Education, vol. 17, no. 1, pp. 40-61. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878518812033

Chapter (peer-reviewed)

Wareham, R 2024, Does the Concept of Indoctrination Need Amelioration? in J Gatley & C Norefalk (eds), Conceptual Engineering in Education: Philosophical Analysis for Educational Problems. Philosophy of Education. Debates and Constellations, Brill Mentis, Paderborn, Germany, pp. 178-207. https://doi.org/10.30965/9783969753033_011

Chapter

Wareham, R 2024, Faith-Sensitive RSE and Catholic Schooling: An Educational Goods Approach. in S Whittle & S Henry (eds), Queer Thriving in Catholic Education: Going Beyond the Pastoral Paradigm for LGBTQ+ Inclusion. 1 edn, Springer, pp. 123-145. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-0323-4

Other report

Foley, E, Gordon, T, Harman, J & Wareham, R 2021, Careless or Uncaring? How faith schools turn away children who are or were in care. Humanists UK. <https://humanists.uk/wp-content/uploads/Careless_or_Uncaring_web.pdf>

Clayton, M, Mason, A, Swift, A & Wareham, R 2018, How to Regulate Faith Schools. IMPACT: Philosophical Perspectives on Education Policy, vol. 2018, 25 edn, Wiley-Blackwell.

Special issue

Mason, A & Wareham, R 2018, 'Faith schools and civic virtue', Theory and Research in Education, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 137-40. https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1477878518786573

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