Dr Duncan Mercieca
Dr Duncan Mercieca lectures in Special Educational Needs, Disability and Inclusion at BGU. His research draws upon post-structural philosophers to think through educational issues, in particular, those related to diversity and otherness; inclusion and disability; and critiquing education research and its methods. Duncan also works in a special school in Scotland.
The values underlying my approach to teaching and pedagogy are the same as those providing the foundation to my research. These are a strong sense of advocacy for voices of those marginalized and an acute awareness that the identities of educators are tightly bound with their approach to education and those they are teaching and engaging with. Thus, my research is informed by my teaching and also influences it, especially as I use theory to question concepts in both practices. My research brings philosophy and educational theory together with empirical data. I do this through qualitative paradigms, but I also deconstruct and question the processes of methods, thus offering alternative engagement with data. I have two main research foci: Identities and becoming(s) and listening to children’s voices.
Books
Mercieca, D. P. (2012) Living Otherwise. Students with profound and multiple learning disabilities as agents in educational contexts. Studies in Inclusive Education Series. Netherlands: Sense Publishers.
Baldacchino, J., Galea, S. and Mercieca, D. P. (Eds) (2014) Kenneth Wain: My Teaching My Philosophy. A Lifelong Engagement with Education. USA: Peter Lang.
Articles in Refereed Journals
Burke, L., Jindal-Snape, D., Lindsay, A., Whyte, S., Wallace, M., Mercieca, D., McKenzie, M., & Keatch, B. (2024). Spaces for play: Listening to children's voices. Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 1-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2024.2318254
Brown, J. and Mercieca, D. P. (2024) Social Justice in Scottish Education? Revisiting the question. Education Sciences. 14(1), 44; https://doi.org/10.3390/educsc....
Coker, H., Kalsoom, Q. and Mercieca D. (2024) Teachers’ Use of Knowledge in Curriculum Making: Implications for Social Justice. Education Sciences. 14(1), doi.org/10.3390/educsci14010003.
Burke, L. and Mercieca, D. (2023) Children’s Voices through play-based practice: Listening, Intensities and Critique. Qualitative Research Journal. Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-06-2023-0105.
Mercieca, D., Mercieca, D.P, & Mercieca, S. P. (2022). Uncertainty and practical judgement in research: a call for attentive ‘listening’. Qualitative Research, 22(3), 421-435. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468794120985685
Mercieca, D., & Mercieca, D. P. (2022). Educational Psychologists as ‘Dissenting Voices’: Thinking Again about Educational Psychologists and Social Justice. Education Sciences, 12(3), [171]. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci12030171
Mercieca, D. P., & Mercieca, D. (2022). Thinking through the death of migrants crossing the Mediterranean Sea: mourning and grief as relational and as sites for resistance. Journal of Global Ethics, 18(1), 48-63. https://doi.org/10.1080/174496...
Colville, T., Hulme, S., Kerr, C. Mercieca, D., and Mercieca, D. P (2021) Teaching and learning in COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland: Teachers’ engaged pedagogy. Frontiers in Psychology. 12:733633. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.733633.
Mercieca, D., Mercieca, D. P., & Ward, K. (2021). Teachers Working in Special Schools in Scotland Acting with Practical Wisdom: Supporting Children with Additional Needs in COVID-19 Lockdown. Education Sciences, 11(10), [569]. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11100569
Smith, C. and Mercieca, D.P. (2021) Teachers working in special education in Scotland: Perceptions regarding emotional awareness and regulation amongst pupils within the Autism Spectrum. Scottish Educational Review. 53(1), 42-63.
Mercieca, D., Mercieca, D. P. and Randall, L. (2021) What about me? Stories of the educational experiences of care experienced children and young people in one Scottish local authority. Journal of Adoption and Fostering. 45(2), 173-190. https://doi.org/10.1177/030857...
Brown, J., McLennan, C., Mercieca, D., Mercieca, D. P., Robertson, D. and Valentine, E. (2021) Technology as Thirdspace: Teachers in Scottish schools engaging with and being challenged by digital technology in first COVID-19 lockdown. Education Sciences, 11(3), 136. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11030136
Ferguson, P., Mercieca D., Mercieca, D.P., Lesley Sutherland and Megan Mckenzie (2021) Primary Head Teachers’ construction and re-negotiation of care in COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland. Frontiers in Education. 6:617869. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2021.617869
Mizzi, B. and Mercieca, D. P. (2020) Ethics education in Maltese public schools: a response to otherness or a contribution to Othering? International Journal of Ethics Education. 6, 3–19, doi: 10.1007/s40889-020-00104-0
McLennan, C., Mercieca, D., and Mercieca, D. P. (2020) What can I do? Caring relationships among teachers, students and families during COVID-19 lockdown in Scotland. Malta Review of Educational Research.14(2), 163-181.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2020) Judgements on young children by Early Years practitioners: working with phronêsis. International Journal of Inclusive Education. 24(13), 1431-1443. doi: 10.1080/13603116.2018.1532534
Mercieca, D. and Mercieca, D. P. (2020) Becoming as a possibility of opening the distribution of the research sensible. Theory and Psychology. 30(3). doi: 10.1177/0959354320923742
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2019) Distribution of the sensible within the Salamanca Statement and Framework for Action: maintaining patterns of inclusion and exclusion? International Journal of Inclusive Education. 23(7-8), 849-861. doi:10.1080/13603116.2019.1623328
Mercieca, D., Mercieca, D. P. & Bugeja, S. (2018) In Hermes’ shoes: Labelling and diagnosing children as acts of translation. Theory and Psychology. 28(4), 542-558.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2016) Working with children? Transforming tiredness into Deleuzian exhaustion. Malta Review of Educational Research. 10(1), 81-96.
Attard, S., Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2016) Ethics in school psychologists report writing: acknowledging aporia. Ethics and Education. 11(1), 55-66.
Attard, S., Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2016) Educational psychologists’ report writing: acts of justice? International Journal of Inclusive Education. 20(9), 962-974.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2014) Reading with love: reading of life narrative of a mother of a child with cerebral palsy. Ethics and Education. 9(3), 264-275.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2014) EPs becoming ignorant: questioning the assumption of listening and empowerment in young children. Education and Child Psychology. 31(1), 22-31.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2014) ‘How early is early?’ or ‘how late is late?’: Thinking through some issues in early intervention. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 46(8), 845-859.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2013) Engagement with research: Acknowledging Uncertainty in Methodology. International Journal of Research & Method in Education.36 (3), 228-240.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2012) How can the Use of Petit Narratives Create Space and Possibility When Shorthand is used in Educational Psychology Practice? Education and Child Psychology.29 (2), 67-76.
Mercieca, D.P. (2012) Becoming-teachers: desiring students. Educational Philosophy and Theory. 44 (S1): 43-56.
Mercieca, D. P. (2012) Initiating ‘The Methodology of Jacques Rancière’: How Does it All Start? Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31 (4), 407-417.
Mercieca, D.P. (2011) Making-sense of intensities of disability through writing and reading - contributing to more inclusive communities. International Journal of Inclusive Education.15 (1), 5-14.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2010) Opening Research to Intensities: Rethinking Disability Research with Deleuze and Guattari. Journal of Philosophy of Education. 44 (1), 79-99.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2009) Literacy with parents for children with profound and multiple difficulties. Education and Child Psychology. 26(4), 55-64.
Mercieca, D. P. (2007) On the borders: the arrival of irregular immigrants in Malta – some implications for education. Ethics and Education. 2 (2): 145-1157.
Chapters in peer-reviewed Books
Coker, H. and Mercieca, D.P (2023) Digital Technology for Inclusive Education: Reflecting on the Role of Teachers. In (Eds) Sara Weuffen, Susan Emmett and Jenene Burke. Challenging mainstream discourses in diverse education communities: Working towards a sustainable global future. Springer.
Mercieca, D. and Mercieca, D.P. (2022) Schools of Tomorrow - Tomorrow’s Schools. A reading for a Maltese document from a Deweyan perspective. In (Eds) Maura Striano and Ronald Sultana. Dewey, Education and the Mediterranean. Netherlands: Brill Publishers.
Mercieca, D.P. (2022) Engaging with student-teachers on reflective writing: reclaiming writing. In (Ed) Mark Murphy. Social theory and educational research: understanding Foucault, Habermas, Derrida and Bourdieu. 2nd Edition. London: Routledge.
Mercieca, D. and Mercieca, D.P. (2016) EP becoming phronimos: the virtue of phronêsis in educational psychology. In (Eds.) Billington, T., Williams, A., Goodley, D. Critical Educational Psychology. UK: Routledge, 112-121.
Mercieca, D. & Mercieca, D. P. (2016) ‘How early is early?’ or ‘how late is late?’ Thinking through some issues in early intervention. In (Eds.) Sandy Farquhar and E. Jayne White Philosophy and Pedagogy of Early Childhood. UK: Routledge, 25-39.
Mercieca, D.P. (2014) Peace as project of dissensus. (eds) Carmel Borg and Michael Grech. Lorenzo Milani's Culture of Peace. Essays on Religion, Education and Democratic Life.UK: Palgrave Macmillan.
Mercieca, D and Mercieca D. P. (2014) Initiating a different kind of conversation between philosophy of education and educators.in. (eds) John Baldacchino, Simone Galea, and Duncan P. Mercieca Kenneth Wain: My Teaching My Philosophy. A Lifelong Engagement with Education. USA: Peter Lang.
Mercieca, D.P. (2013) Engaging with student-teachers on reflective writing: reclaiming writing (ed) Mark Murphy Social theory and educational research: understanding Foucault, Habermas, Derrida and Bourdieu. London: Routledge.
Mercieca, D.P. (2010) ‘To Give’ and the Social Model: to think the Impossible! in, (ed) Andrew Azzopardi, Making Sense of Inclusive Education: Where everyone belongs. Germany: VDM Verlag.
Book Reviews, Forewords and Introductions
Calleja, C., Callus, A.M., Gauci, V. and Mercieca, D.P, (2017). Introduction to Special Issue on Inclusive Education: listening to disabled students' voices Editorial. Malta Review of Educational Research, 11(2), pp. 161-164.
Baldacchino, J., Galea, S. and Mercieca, D. P. (eds) (2014) Kenneth Wain: My Teaching My Philosophy. A Lifelong Engagement with Education. USA: Peter Lang. Introduction.
Mercieca, D. P. (2013) Caught between borders - Foreword. (eds) Christopher Bezzina and Kenneth Vella. The Leadership Imperative. A journey where people matter. Print It: Malta. Forward.
Mercieca, D. P. (2008) Theory of Mind and the Triad of Perspectives on Autism and Asperger Syndrome, by Olga Bogdashina. British Journal of Special Education. 35(1): 63-64. Book review.
Non-Refereed Journal Articles
Mercieca, D.P, Jindal-Snape, D., & Mercieca, D. (2021, Sep 24). Why lockdown learning loss shouldn't cloud the gains. Times Educational Supplement.
Mercieca, D., & Mercieca, D. P. (2020, Nov). Response to call from Scottish Parliament COVID-19 Committee (Nov 2020): Topic 3 – Protecting those at risk.