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Senior Lecturer

Psychology, Sociology and Education

Tel: 0131 474 0000

Siân Jones is a Senior Lecturer in the Psychology, Sociology and Education Division and a full member of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences.

I am a Chartered Psychologist and Senior Lecturer at Queen Margaret University. I obtained my degrees from the University of Exeter and Cardiff University. I haveÌý previously held academic positions at Keele University, Oxford Brookes University, Goldsmiths and Birkbeck, University of London.

I have been teaching in higher education (HE) since 2007, across multiple institutions. I joined Queen Margaret University in 2018. I have developed a new course, an MA in Special and Inclusive Education, and and am now its Programme Lead. IÌý am also a module leader for several modules on this programme as well as inclusive education modules on our Education and Psychology programmes on-campus at undergraduate level.
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During my time at all teaching institutions, I have been able to draw on my living experience of being ‘outside the curriculum’ as a physically disabled, queer academic. My teaching philosophy is rooted in the belief that education should empower students to become critical thinkers, problem solvers, and active agents for social change in their workplaces.
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I have spent the past ten years or so focusing my research attention on disabled children's friendship groups, discovering along the way that there aren't very many lecturers like me, nor disabled teachers in schools (although the number of disabled pupils is increasing). Further research revealed that disabled people weren't very well represented in the UK curricula, nor in children's material culture (their books, toys, films, video games etc.) I also found that educators often feel awkward talking about disability with their learners,Ìý whetherÌý those learners are disabled or not. IÌýuse the termÌý"disability literacy" as a kind of catch-all to cover educators' and learners' capacity to think and talk about disability and accessibility in helpful ways.
My research has primarily been in the areas of social and educational psychology, with a specific focus on friendships in schools. I look at how education professionals and parents can harness children’s imagined play to build everyone's disability literacy in anti-ableist ways.
You can read more about my current research with Dr Clare Uytman and the ToyBox Diversity Lab at . If you are interested in Disability Literacy, you can join a virtual network of like minded individuals here:

Active research interests:

  • Social inclusion
  • Bullying
  • Peer rejection
  • Prejudice
  • Discrimination
  • Disability Literacy
  • Depathologization

 Research Methods:

  • Experimental
  • Interview
  • Online survey research
  • Focus groups

For further information look at  through Orcid.

Key publication:

Jones, S.E. (2024) ‘Raising awareness isn’t enough: The role of the psychology of education in disability-related justice and inclusion in primary classrooms’. Psychology of Education Review, 48(1), pp. 6–19. Available at: or

I am the Programme Lead for the online , running several of the modules on this programme. Alongside this, I teach on our on-campus programmes on the topics of peer relations, social justice, queer psychology, and inclusive education. I supervise research projects at undergraduate, Masters and PhD level in these areas.

2018: Member ofÌýthe Editorial Board of theÌýFrontiers in Psychology Journal

2016-2017. British Academy Small Grant The Many Colours of Home: Effects of Imagined Contact on Children’s Acceptance of Immigrants. £9 275

2014: BPS Developmental Section Early Career Researchers International Collaborations Scheme (£450)

2014: Student-nominated Personal Academic Advisor Award

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