David Stephens (University Brighton)

David Stephens is an internationally renowned expert in International Education and Development, with extensive experience in school-based action research and research capacity building at national and local level. He has more than forty years of experience as an international researcher, with extensive research experience in sub-Saharan Africa, most notably Nigeria, South Africa, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius and Sierra Leone. For two years (1994-1996) he was DfID Education Adviser in Ghana. He has also worked extensively on issues of health education, the quality of primary education, and educational reconstruction in post-conflict societies such as Afghanistan and South Africa.  

He has recently completed a three-year funded research project in Kenya which examined the role and impact of a school-based mentoring progamme in a group of primary schools in Eldoret and Nairobi. Currently he is leading a World Bank project in The Gambia which is introducing participatory action research into a number of primary schools. 

He is author of several key publications pertaining to culture in educational development, research methodologies, notably the role of narrative in educational research, and the quality of primary education in sub-Saharan Africa.  

David Stephens currently divides his time between his university post at Brighton and Peru where he works as a novelist.

David is a Co-Investigator on the Phase 2 South Africa project 'Mapping Community Heritage with young people in rural South Africa.'