Dr Emma Bolger

From Review to Opportunity: Expanding Interdisciplinary Curricula and Practice in Higher Education Undergraduate Interdisciplinarity is increasingly positioned as essential to addressing complex social, environmental, and economic challenges, yet there remains limited clarity about how interdisciplinary engagement is introduced, sustained, and developed across learners’ educational journeys. This paper examines pathways for interdisciplinary activity through a critical review of interdisciplinary curricula and practice, drawing on an institutional case study of a large, open access university with a longstanding tradition of multidisciplinary provision.  Using secondary data, comparative analysis of UK interdisciplinary programmes, and institutional reflection, the paper explores the distinction between multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary learning, and interdisciplinary practice, arguing that these differences are often blurred in both curriculum design and external discourse. The...

The OU Employability Conference 2022: expanding the narrative for a rapidly changing world - continuing the conversation takes place in a few weeks.  The programme offers a global perspective on principles of employability. "Higher education institutes (HEIs) have a major role to play in helping nurture students, but their impact is hampered by a narrowed definition of employability that sees them focusing too much on employment. HEIs need to expand the narrative to cover the many reasons why people commit to university study."  I will be presenting a workshop at the conference, taking the opportunity to expand the narrative around employability in HE to older adults, building on the work I am conducting with Professor Valerie Egdell and Dr Louise Ritchie . The abstract for my session is reproduced below. Supporting the employability of adults aged 50+ in the post Covid-19 era   Emma Bolger, University of the West of Scotland, UK Co-authors: Valerie Egdell, Northumbria...

On Friday 26th February 2021, I will be presenting at the CDI/SDS/Napier/UWS CPD Conference Scotland 2021, on Family Background and Career Decision-Making, with my collaborator from Germany, Jens Boernemeyer. 

A very well spent day today, (virtually) attending the national Career Development Researcher Conference, organised by the CDI, AGCAS and iCeGs. Excellent speakers, some of whom have inspired and supported my own research over the years. I presented as part of the UK panel, sharing my own insights on ethics in CIAG practitioner-led research. I'll be sharing an extended version of my presentation in a few weeks, when I have a bit more time on my hands!

At this week's Career Guidance and Development CPD Conference Scotland, I presented, for the first time, my work to date on domestic abuse and career guidance practice. Firstly, thank you to everyone who, despite it being the last workshop of the day, stayed to fill the room and engage with the topic. I think this demonstrates how permeating this topic is. As I said in my presentation 1-in-4 people will encounter domestic abuse in their lifetime, this includes all of us, practitioners and clients alike. The slides I used are available at the link below and include links to sources of support here in Scotland: https://thecdi.net/write/Events/Presentations/Scottish%20CPD/2020_Workshop_Emma_Bolger.pdf Domestic abuse can affect anyone regardless of gender, sexual orientation, age, or any other characteristic or background demographics and to see a diverse audience in attendance was heartening. The discussion was loud! I don’t think I have ever observed a conference works...

We will be hosting the Career Guidance and Development  CPD Conference Scotland at UWS next week, and as ever have been focusing on accessibility, inclusion and thoughtful design as we plan and deliver this new format conference. The event builds on and amalgamates the CDI Student Conference Scotland with the UWS/ENU/SDS Research Symposium and in addition offers a broad CPD opportunity for selected practitioners in the sector in Scotland. This conference is designed to highlight the latest developments in the sector and is presented by a range of expert keynote speakers and workshop presenters all of whom are leaders in their field. The keynotes and workshops are focused on issues of equality, diversity and inclusion in the careers sector. The final version of the conference programme is available here  (note that workshop rooms will be advised on the day). Our audience will be students undertaking postgraduate studies in career guidance and development in Sco...

Next month, Dr Valerie Egdell and I will be presenting at the British Society of Gerontology 48th Annual Conference which takes place from 10th – 12th July 2019 in Liverpool. We are paper 136, part of the Work, retirement and the economy session . An abstract for our paper can be found below.  This is the first public presentation of our (with Dr Louise Ritchie ) highly important work on this topic.  Abstract It is recognised that dementia is, and will increasingly be, a workplace issue. While continued employment is not appropriate for all, it is possible (Ritchie et al., 2018). At present however, many individuals leave the workplace before, or on receipt of, a diagnosis of dementia (Ritchie et al., 2018). Continued employment, facilitated by reasonable adjustments, or redeployment, may not be considered; such that employers may fail meet their legal and human rights obligations to support employees with dementia (Egdell et al., 2018; Ritchie et al., 2018). The ...

Last month, I took my ten month old baby with me to a conference away from home. It's not common to see a baby accompanying a delegate on the academic conference scene and I had quite a few questions and comments whilst at the conference and more since. For those curious as to how it came to happen, here's how (and why) I did it.  " Did you ask if you could bring her?" I had a baby less than a year ago, so she comes with me to a lot of work events. She's been seen regularly throughout this academic year, as I returned to work " early " when she was only 3 months old. For the conference "all" I need to do for explicit practicalities was ask the hosting venue for a travel cot and high chair. There were plenty of other logistical issues to navigate. First of all, I'm not going to suggest bringing your baby with you to a work event is easy or suitable for everyone and every working environment but it has often worked for me and it worke...

My presentation from the NICEC  conference 2019 is available via this link . This is a succinct summary of my PhD research to date, on gender and career decision-making, with a focus on the Scottish Modern Apprenticeship programme, and now includes some initial findings from my quantitative research. 

A milestone has been significantly, and quietly, passed: it is over 4 months since I came back to work off maternity leave. A milestone because this date means I've been back at work for over half of my baby daughter's short life already. And we have all survived. I'm continually infuriated by the lack of inclusion of mothers who "go back early" from the maternity leave narrative, the lack of focus on the benefits of and barriers to parental leave, the difficulty in finding baby changing facilities in academic institutions and the fact that my daughter is being set up for a lifetime of disappointment once she realises that girls' and women's clothes don't all contain the multiple pockets she's become accustomed to in her baby wear. But I'm also invigorated by how welcome my baby has been at work. We've joked about how she's clocked up more CPD hours than most in our profession since she arrived in June, but it's true. She...

I am unable to attend the IAEVG conference in Gothenburg this week, as I am currently navigating work and life around* a four month old baby. A poster summarising my PhD research, titled "Addressing gendered career decision-making: adapting career guidance and counselling practice to the contemporary family unit" is on display at the conference in my absence and can also be viewed below. *quite literally - right now she's on my lap trying to get to the keyboard of my PC!

I had a perfectly timed academic baby this year: she arrived the first weekend in June, just before the quieter period, where academics with greater teaching responsibilities in the first two trimesters of the academic year get on with ( amongst other tasks ) writing papers and undertaking research. You'd be surprised by how many of us “coincidentally” time things just right when growing a family to keep our academic careers on track, whilst acknowledging that any time out is a risk. I've missed out on a lot of excellent conferences in my field this summer-autumn, including turning down presentation spots that would've been REF-able and good to have on my CV. I'm back at work but attending events away from Scotland is becoming increasingly tricky. I'm not averse to taking one or both children with me, and their dad. Like many academics, a conference trip often becomes an opportunity for a “workcation” for me with the family in tow. Plenty of folk have met my ...

I am unable to attend this week's NICE network conference  in Krakow - I have a 3 month old baby at home and travel at present is difficult plus it is both my first week back after maternity leave and the first week of our new academic year at UWS in Paisley. It is really disappointing to miss this superb conference but I have sent a poster for display in my absence: "Addressing under-representation in our sector: Recruiting more diverse employee groups to Career Information, Advice and Guidance roles" which details a new project we are looking to establish in Scotland, focusing on how we address under-representation in the training routes that lead to the career development professions. Krakow Poster

From 23-24 November 2017 I attended the NVL Career Management Skills conference in Malmo, where I delivered a keynote speech, The blueprint framework for career learning in Scotland. Presentations and additional material from this highly informative, discussion and thought-provoking conference are now available here .

An abridged audio recording of this keynote speech I delivered at the University of the West of Scotland, Edinburgh Napier University and Skills Development Scotland annual career guidance research symposium in March 2017, is now available on my YouTube channel at:  https://youtu.be/16y40HftwO8

Earlier this year, I became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, having completed an independent research project into my professional practice.  My research project looked at the use of career guidance skills in university teaching.  Enabling people to reach their career potential is the responsibility of everyone involved in education. Post-course employability is at the forefront of my own approach to teaching; working in careers prior to and whilst teaching and bolstered with the postgraduate qualification career guidance and development (and a PhD rooted in career development theory on its way). The (abridged, it was quite long...) research project may be of interest to:  careers researchers, careers professionals,  creative/cultural industry academics, the wider HE community.  I hope it may also be of help to others who have portfolio careers in the creative and/or careers sectors and are considering applying for HEA fellowship. My project is avai...

In December I attended the Scotland Policy Conferences Keynote Seminar: 'Developing the Young Workforce' - next steps for skills development and apprenticeships in Scotland . The briefing document is now available for purchase and has been distributed to delegates, contacts in government, the Scottish Parliament and other stakeholders. I contributed a short article to the briefing document, which is published below. For reference, a full list of the conference contributors can be downloaded here . There was much discussion at the Keynote Seminar of the need for diversity and consideration of equalities within apprenticeship provision. Reference was made by the Cabinet Secretary and Damien Yeates to the recently launched Skills Development Scotland Equality Action Plan for Modern Apprenticeships. Equalities should be seen to lead the development of apprenticeship provision in Scotland. My specialist area is gender bias in Modern Apprenticeships and for me, it was interesti...

I will be delivering a conference presentation on Friday 13th November 2015 at the National Association of Writers in Education annual conference in Durham. The Writer’s (Career) Journey This session will look at how to use the techniques and principles of careers advice and guidance in creative writing courses. The workshop will present tools, relevant career counselling techniques, group work and individual exercises that can be used to help students understand why they want to write and where it might take them. Participants will engage in practical, adaptable activities and learn how career planning can benefit the writing workshop for students of all ages. Participants will gain a better understanding of how to help learners map their writer’s journey, identify career support networks and develop careers in writing. The presentation will draw directly on career development theory and the importance of the role of non-careers professionals in career  information, ...

I attended the Character Scotland conference  this week, which welcomed over 250 delegates, all keen to explore how we can integrate character development into our educational practices. This is my first exploratory post into character and career education, information, advice and guidance following this two-day conference.  Before I go onto the content of the seminars and keynotes I took most from in relation to my own practice and research, worth noting was the quality of the delivery of presentations. In Seminar 1  Education (re)design , the panel used the PechaKucha approach: presenters work through 20 slides, each displayed for 20 seconds. This was completely new to me, and talk about keeping folk to time and to the point! I am wondering how I can use this in my own teaching and presentations. As a delegate it kept me engaged and whetted my appetite to learn more about the presenters, their backgrounds, their topics. A second stand-out moment in relation t...

Tying in well with my previous post, today is a day away from Management PhD matters and back into the arts world I come from. It’s the annual  OU in Scotland  Arts Faculty Residential Conference at  New Lanark . I have presented papers here before, and expect to again, drawing from arts-relevant research that emerges from my PhD. However this time around, alongside papers on colleagues’ research in the arts I’ll be presenting a slightly different form of research output: reading a selection of short prose on the theme of the craft of writing. These stories emerged from my  MFA  in Creative Writing and after editing have joined a wider collection. Some have already found homes in various journals, short story magazines and one even won a competition. I’m hoping they go down well today, as they cross the boundaries between story for story’s sake, and pedagogy. They are of stories of varying length, so here is one of the shorter, suitable-for-a-blog-po...