Name: Dr. Finian O’Shea

Country: Ireland

Expertise

worked as a lecturer in Education and in Special Education at Church of Ireland College, until its closure in 2016. Prior to that he worked as a primary school teacher, as a literacy support teacher, as a special education teacher and as an adult literacy tutor, before moving into teacher Education.
He has a wide range of experience in designing, delivering, and evaluating courses in both literacy and in inclusive education. He has worked with teachers in mainstream and in non-traditional educational settings. He has a particular interest in policy development, ethics and reflective practice for educators.

He has acted as external examiner for several universities. He evaluated practicum, assignments and student course feedback on post graduate programmes in Education, in Inclusive Education, in School Leadership.

He has a long-standing passion for and interest in literature for children and young adults. Finian is a past president and honorary lifetime member of The Literacy Association of Ireland (LAI). He has served as a jury member for LAI’s children’s book awards as well as for Children’s Books Ireland’s ‘Book of the Year’ award.

Finian has undertaken an evaluation, with his colleague Máirín Wilson, of Summer Reading Programmes in libraries across Ireland for the Local Government Management Agency.  He has been a board member of the National Council for Special Education (NCSE) and is a Trustee of The Irish Federation of University Teachers (IFUT) as well as a member of IFUT’s Equality Committee.

Finian currently works as a Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Education, Trinity College Dublin. He lectures on research methods, teacher identity, reflective practice and supervises Master’s students. He works as a Board Member and as a volunteer literacy & English language tutor at Warrenmount Adult Community Education Centre. Since retirement, Finian has undertaken a wide range of online courses and MOOCs and is a third-year student of Spanish at Instituto Cervantes in Dublin.

Research interests

His current research interests are in how best to support children with intellectual disabilities through loss and family separation; in supporting adult English language learners; in reflective practice for educators across all settings; in lifelong learning; in identity studies and in the works of Gloria Anzaldúa. He has recently completed research on identity politics and the connection between literacy identity and tattoos.

Languages  

• English and Irish (native speaker)
• Spanish (Level B2)

Recent Presentations and Workshops

• We Are All Clusters of Story: Gloria Anzaldúa and the search for identity, SILAS Conference, Trinity College, Dublin.
• Summer Reading Programmes. Findings from the LGMA study. Literacy Association of Ireland Conference, Marino Institute, Dublin 9.
• Understanding Children’s Literacies. Presentation, Mountjoy Prison, Dublin 1.
• The Body Documents of Identity. Conference paper, Dialogue in Education Conference, St. Patrick’s College, Dublin.
• ‘And the Word Was Made Flesh: Public literacies, voice and identity.’ Student Voice Conference, Trinity College Dublin.

Contact

E-mail:               finghinos@gmail.com
Phone / Text:    +353 87 2112814