About

I am a Senior Lecturer (Research) in the Institute of Education at the University of Derby.

I currently lead the innovative award winning Young Researchers Young Voices project which employs five young people with special needs and disabilities as co-researchers to gather and analyse data about children and young people with special needs and disabilities. The research focusses on how children and young people with SEND are involved in the decisions made about their support, how much agency they have in the process, and their lived experiences of SEND support. 

I was the lead researcher on the three-year Researching Arts in Primary Schools (RAPS) project led by Professor Pat Thomson at the University of Nottingham which examined 40 arts-rich primary schools.

Teaching responsibilities

Research interests

My main research interests include:

• The intersections of education, childhood, music, arts and media
• Arts education partnerships
• SEND education
• Music for children

With co-author Professor Pat Thomson, I have published journal articles and a report on the benefits of arts, crafts and design education (The RAPS Project). I have worked on other research projects with Pat concerning arts education, student voice, student progression and corruption in the education system.

I am an experienced mixed methods researcher and have interviewed and surveyed thousands of children, young people, teachers, heads, arts leads, visiting artists and outreach staff from arts and music organisations.

My PhD was on music made for children. My book 'Spinning the Child: Musical Constructions of Childhood through Records, Radio and Television' (Routledge 2021) and other publications examine how music made for children constructs discourses and ideals of childhood.

My publications include journal articles and chapters on the quantitative analysis of children’s music, children’s singing voices, humour in children's music, issues of authorship and originality in music, and the music of the Joy Division biopic ‘Control’, a film I worked on as a music performance coach.

Membership of professional bodies

• Higher Education Academy: Associate Fellow
• BERA: British Educational Research Association
• IASPM: International Association for the Study of Popular Music
• EAS: European Association for Music in Schools
• Association for Research in Cultures of Young People
• Children’s Music Network

Qualifications

• PhD: Spinning the Child: How Records Made for Children Construct Childhood. Department of Music, University of Liverpool
• MA Popular Music Studies. Institute of Popular Music, University of Liverpool
• Postgraduate Certificate in Education (Post Compulsory Education), Nottingham Trent University
• MPhil: Bioengineering, University of Wales College Cardiff

Recent conferences

• Association of Colleges SEND Conference (Keynote). London. 11 December 2024.
• Traditions in transformation: 31st European Association for Music in Schools Conference,  Dublin, Ireland. 12-15 June 2024.
• Ways ahead for children’s music research (Keynote). Inland Norway University of Applied Science. Finnskogtoppen Spa, Norway. 8-10 August 2022.
• The value of children’s participation in Art, Craft and Design Education research. Hybrid Spaces: Re-imagining pedagogy, practice and research. iJADE. Online. 26-28 March 2021.

Additional interests and activities

• Cycling
• Travel
• Music, culture, media and politics
• Sustainable living
• Songwriting, recording and performing music for children and families with my band Johnny & the Raindrops. Highlights include hundreds of festival appearances including a 3-week run at the Edinburgh Fringe, ten albums, 1 million YouTube views, international song writing awards and nominations, reading a CBeebies Bedtime Story and performing in a book shop on Route 66 in Tulsa, USA

Recent publications

• ‘“The way I know is by looking back”: English primary school children’s views of making progress in arts subjects’. Co-authored with Pat Thomson and Chris Hall. Education 3-13. 24 September 2023. doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2023.2253075
• ‘Research subjects, participants or co-researchers? Extending the involvement of students in art and design research’. Co-authored with Pat Thomson. iJADE 42(3): 353-366, 2023. doi.org/10.1111/jade.12470
• Spinning the Child: Musical Constructions of Childhood through Records, Radio and Television. London and New York: Routledge. 2021. doi.org/10.4324/9780203702680

For a full list of my publications, visit: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Liam-Maloy/research