Life Fellow
Neil Mercer, BSc (Manchester), MA (Cambridge), PhD (Leicester) is Emeritus Professor of Education at the University of Cambridge, where he is also Director of Oracy Cambridge: the Centre for Effective Spoken Communication at Hughes Hall. Before he joined Cambridge, he was Professor of Language and Communications at the Open University. He grew up in the Lake District and is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Cumbria.
A psychologist whose research has focused on the development of children’s spoken language and reasoning abilities and teachers’ role in that development, he has worked extensively and internationally with teachers, researchers and educational policy makers. In 2019 he was given the Oeuvre Award for outstanding contributions to educational research by the European Association for Research into Learning and Instruction. And, in 2021, he was the recipient of the John Nisbet Award from the British Educational Research Association in recognition of outstanding contributions to educational research.
Books authored
- Common Knowledge: the development of joint understanding in the classroom (with Derek Edwards, 1987/2012).
- The Guided Construction of Knowledge (1995).
- Words and Minds: how we use language to think together (2000).
- Thinking Together: a programme of activities for developing speaking, listening and thinking skills (with Lyn Dawes & Rupert Wegerif).
- Dialogue and the Development of Children’s Thinking (with Karen Littleton, 2007).
- Interthinking: putting talk to work (with Karen Littleton, 2013).
A collection of his work has been published as Language and the Joint Creation of Knowledge (Routledge, 2019), and his work has been translated into Spanish, Korean, Greek, Dutch, Portuguese, Arabic & Mandarin.
Other awards and appointments
- Former Vice President and Life Fellow of the Cambridge college Hughes Hall
- Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society
- Honorary Fellow of the University of Cumbria
- Visiting Fellow of the English Language Institute of Singapore
- Fellow of the ESRC Peer Review College
- Former editor of the journals Learning and Instruction, the International Journal of Educational Research and Learning, Culture and Social Interaction.
- Education policy advisor to various jurisdictions including England, Brazil, Mexico, Netherlands, Singapore, Switzerland, Wales.
Music
Outside academia, he has an active involvement with music and was musical director of the Living Archive community arts project in Milton Keynes. He plays the mandolin, guitar and other instruments (see links below).
Links
Websites
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Mercer
- https://www.educ.cam.ac.uk/people/staff/mercer/
- https://oracycambridge.org
- https://thinkingtogether.educ.cam.ac.uk
Presentations
- The Power of Talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9DdfTmT29E
- Making the most of educational dialogue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xGmNJUeso6g
- Talk may be cheap but groupwork is priceless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uC3AfFkLyi4
Music
- https://www.livingarchive.org.uk/content/online-shop/audio-cds/real-lives
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=SN&hl=fr&v=7Dv0txT5Rx8
- https://soundcloud.com/eilercer
- https://open.spotify.com/album/23A4cHoGwKoq3WGnrBHbuK
@profneilmercer
Selected Recent Publications
Books
- Mercer, N. (2019) Language and the Joint Creation of Knowledge: the selected works of Neil Mercer. Abingdon: Routledge. Routledge page: https://www.routledge.com/Language-and-the-Joint-Creation-of-Knowledge-The-selected-works-of-Neil/Mercer/p/book/9780367367480
- Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. & Major, L. (eds) (2019), The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. Abingdon: Routledge. Amazon page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-International-Handbook-Education-Handbooks/dp/1138338516
Chapters and reports
- Mercer, N. (2016) Oracy and thinking skills. Chapter 12 of Speaking Frankly: the case for oracy in the curriculum. London: English Speaking Union & Voice 21. https://www.esu.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/ESU-Speaking-Frankly.pdf
- Mercer, N, & Mannion, J. (2018) Oracy Across the Welsh Curriculum: a research-based review and recommendations for teachers. Cambridge: Oracy Cambridge. https://oracycambridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Oracy-across-the-Welsh-curriculum-July-2018.pdf
- Mercer, N., Mannion, J. & Warwick, P. (2019) Oracy education: the development of young people’s spoken language skills. In Mercer, N., Wegerif, R. & Major, L. (eds) (2019), The Routledge International Handbook of Research on Dialogic Education. Abingdon: Routledge.
Journals
- Mercer, N., Hennessy, S. and Warwick, P. (2017). Dialogue, Thinking Together and digital technology in the classroom: Implications of a continuing line of inquiry for developing dialogic teaching practices. International Journal of Educational Research, Volume 97, 2019, Pages 187-199.
- Mercer, N. & Warwick, P. (2017) Identifying and assessing students’ spoken language skills. Impact, 1, 15-17.
- Howe, C., Hennessy, S., Mercer, N. Vrikki, M. & Wheatley, L. (2019). Teacher-student dialogue during classroom teaching: Does it really impact upon student outcomes? Journal of the Learning Sciences, 28 (4-5), 462- 512.
- Johnson, M. & Mercer, N. (2019) Using sociocultural discourse analysis to analyse professional discourse. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 21, 267-277.
- Howe, C., Hennessy, S., Mercer, N. Vrikki, M. & Wheatley, L. (2019). Teacher-student dialogue during classroom teaching: Does it really impact upon student outcomes? Journal of the Learning Sciences, 28 (4-5), 462- 512.
