Our Research

Publications

We have published a range of research papers, reports, and briefings focusing on the role and potential of gardens in education, arts-based and creative methodologies, and sensorial and material-aesthetic approaches in STEAM education. See a selected list of our publications below.

Hancock, J., Colucci-Gray, L., Darling-McQuistan, K., Chapman-Kelly, S. (2025). Decolonising primary teacher education through embodied and sensory approaches in STEAM education. Scottish Educational Review. Special Issue: Decolonisation in Teacher Education. https://edin.ac/4mgmp9v

Colucci-Gray, L., & Hancock, J. (Accepted/In Press). Thinking and action on a pressurised Planet: The case for food activism in a formal science education. In A. Sezen-Barrie and S. Tolbert (eds),Handbook of Climate Change Education Research, Policy, and Practice. Springer.

Colucci-Gray, L., Cooke, C., Sinnemaki, J., Fenivesy, K., & Burnard, P. (Accepted/In press). Audacious enactments of teacher research: A cartography of three practices. In Eruptive Research: Audacious Creative Research Practices for Our Time Brill Academic Publishers.

Colucci-Gray, L. (Accepted/In press). Artistry of teaching as a practice of curation: Inviting possibilities for knowing and seeing anew. In G. Biesta, & R. Affifi (Eds.), Reclaiming the Artistry of Teaching Bloomsbury .

Colucci-Gray, L. (2025). Carbon entanglements: For a science education in the space of the sensible. Policy Futures in Education, 23(3), 553-567. https://doi.org/10.1177/14782103251320828

Hancock, J. with Gray, D., Colucci-Gray, L., & Donald, B. (2023). School Gardens Briefing Paper. Funded by One Seed Forward. https://edin.ac/3ukurJr

Hancock, J., Gray, D., and Colucci-Gray, L. (2023). A view from the garden: Interrupting the politics of attainment and reorienting education towards sustainable futures. European Educational Research Journal. https://doi.org/10.1177/14749041231189967

Hancock, J., Al-Bishawi, R., & Coyle, D. (2023a). Ownership and agency through learner-led design of shared learning spaces: a multi-case study approach. Cambridge Journal of Education, 53(6), 761-778. https://doi.org/10.1080/0305764X.2023.2234848

Cooke, C., Colucci-Gray, L., and Burnard, P. (2023). Sensing bodies: Transdisciplinary enactments of ‘thing-power’ and ‘making-with’ for educational future-making. Digital Culture and Education 14(5), pp. 24-43.

Gray, D., Colucci-Gray, L., and Robertson, L. (2021). Cultivating primary creativities in STEAM gardens. In Sculpting new creativities in primary education. Routledge, pp. 146-161.

Darling-McQuistan, K., Gray, D., Colucci-Gray, L., & Education in the North (2019). Education in a Posthuman Age. Education in the North, 26(1), 1-5. https://doi.org/10.26203/41vd-v647

Gray, D., Colucci-Gray, L., Donald, R., et al. (2019). From oil to soil. Learning for sustainability and transitions within the school garden: A project of cultural and social re-learning. Scottish Educational Review51(1): 57–70. https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/112111282/Gray_Colucci_Gray_et_al_SER_2019_1.pdf

Colucci-Gray, L., & Darling-McQuistan, K. (2018). Researching education in Scotland. In T.G.K. Bryce, W.M. Humes, D. Gillies, & A. Kennedy (Eds.), Scottish Education(5th ed.). Edinburgh University Press.