Dr Dane Morace-Court
PhD, FHEA, MA(Ed), PGCE, BA(Hons)
Senior Lecturer
School of Health and Sport
Room no. RM203b
Biography
Dr Dane Morace-Court is a Senior Lecturer in education whose teaching and scholarship are rooted in the critical sociology of education, with a particular focus on social-class, masculinity, inequality and the cultural politics of schooling. His work is informed by critical pedagogy, Bourdieusian and Goffmanesque sociology and qualitative methodologies, and is concerned with how structural inequalities are lived, embodied and reproduced within everyday educational contexts.
Dane’s research examines the effects of neoliberalism and meritocratic discourse on young people’s educational identities, aspirations and trajectories, with sustained attention to the experiences of white working-class boys. He is especially interested in how contemporary formations of masculinity, affect and social media cultures intersect with classed experiences of schooling, attainment and disengagement. Across his work, he explores how identities and aspirations are shaped not as freely chosen projects, but as socially patterned and structurally constrained orientations towards the future.
He is the author of Neoliberal Boys: Class, Masculinity and the Crisis in Education (Routledge), which examines the educational experiences of working-class boys through the intersecting lenses of neoliberal governance, masculinity and social reproduction. He is also the author of Autoethnography: A Case for the Defence (Routledge), which offers a sustained and critical defence of autoethnography as a rigorous, theoretically generative research approach, engaging directly with its most persistent critiques.
Dane’s work contributes to contemporary debates on inequality, identity and education, and is underpinned by a commitment to reflexivity, critical engagement and social justice.
Further information
Since qualifying as a teacher with a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), Dane has accumulated over 15 years of professional experience across a range of educational settings, including SEND provision and both primary and secondary schools.
His roles included senior leadership positions, working as a Teaching and Learning Lead and as Head of College, with responsibilities spanning curriculum development, inclusive practice, staff development, strategic improvement and safeguarding lead.
This extensive career in schools and colleges underpins his work in higher education, which he entered following the completion of his PhD, and continues to inform his teaching, research and engagement with educational policy and practice.
Taught courses
