Faculty of Humanities and Education

School of Education

Dr. Laurette Bristol

Dr. Laurette Bristol

Senior Lecturer in Teacher Education & Curriculum

Director, School of Education; Chair, Eastern Caribbean-JBTE

Department: School of Education

Bio

Laurette Bristol (PhD) directs the School of Education at the University of the West Indies Cave Hill Campus, Barbados. She has over twenty-five years of service in the areas of primary education, teacher education, education administration and education policy in the Caribbean and internationally. From 2018 – 2023, Dr. Bristol served as the Programme Manager, Human Resource Development at the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat Headquarters in Guyana.
 

Dr. Bristol is a narrative researcher and postcolonial scholar with over forty peer-reviewed, single-authored and co-authored books, book chapters and journal articles. Her research explores the intersection between history and educational practices and considers such educational matters as education transformation, mentoring and educational leadership.

 

In 2017, Dr. Bristol won the Accreditation Council of Trinidad and Tobago (ACTT) Quality in Tertiary Education (QuiTE), Excellence in Applied and Academic Research (Individual Category) Award. In 2015, she won the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Caribbean and African Studies in Education (CASE) Outstanding Research Paper Award for her paper: “Reflective Leading: A Case of a Principal’s Practice in a Small Urban Primary School.” This was a co-authored submission.

 

Dr. Bristol has served as a visiting scholar at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research (FIER), University of Jyväskylä, Finland (2017, 2015 and 2013). She has served as a visiting scholar at the University of Venda and the Central University of Technology, South Africa in 2024.

Qualifications

Ph.D.- Education, University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK, 2009
 

Research Areas

Her research emphasises the historical impact of the colonial experience on classroom practices, prefiguring post-colonial educational aspirations and actions. More specifically, she has an international research profile that crosses the fields of professional development, mentoring, leadership, and school transformation

Teaching Areas

Graduate:
EDCU 6003 – Curriculum Foundations
EDCU 6604 – Curriculum Design for the Caribbean I
EDCU 6005 – Leading Curriculum & Instruction in the Caribbean
EDRS 6910 – Research Project
EDRS 6210 – Fundamentals of Eduction Research II

Publications

Bristol, L. (2025). Thoughtful Subversion: Higher education as a site for activism and co-creation. In T. Esnard (Ed.). Pursuing social justice agendas for Caribbean Higher Education Institutions: Perspectives and Prospects for Small Island Developing States. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Pursuing-Social-Justice-Agendas-in-Caribbean-Higher-Education-Perspectives-and-Prospects-for-Small-Island-Developing-States/Esnard/p/book/9781032547886?srsltid=AfmBOoohT9L9P9l2WKvP2PIm966ySsgD8ljvHQ7Icxd1jUoUsdP90v3T  
 
Esnard, T., Bristol. L., Coye. T., De Four-Babb. J. & Perez. L. (2024). Repositioning Identity and Citizenship: Tensions and Prospects within Caribbean Institutions of Higher Education. In S. Fraser-Burgess, J. De Four-Babb, V. Knight, O. M. Odebiyi, I. A. Salami & A. Allert. (eds.). Handbook of Caribbean and African Studies in Education: Reimagining Education in the Post-2020 Era. Bloomsbury. 

Slater, D., Bristol, L., Gordon Boyle, K. (2022). Healthy Lives, education, and wealth: ecological relationships in social resilience. Pan American Journal of Public Health. https://doi.org/10.26633/RPSP.2022.57 
 
Heikkinen, H., Wilkinson, J., & Bristol, L. (2021). Three orientations for understanding educational autonomy: School principals’ voices from Australia, Finland, and Jamaica. Journal of Educational Administration and History, DOI: 10.1080/00220620.2020.1849060. https://doi.org/10.1080/00220620.2020.1849060 
 
Bristol L. (2020) Plantation Pedagogy: A Practical Response for Pre-service Teacher Education. In: Peters M. (eds) Encyclopedia of Teacher Education (pp.1-6). Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-1179-6_202-1  
 
Bristol, L. S., & Childs, M. (2018). Arranging and Rearranging Practice in Digital Spaces: Professional Learning Amongst Teacher Educators. In Management Association, I. (Ed.), Online Course Management: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 567-585). IGI Global. http://doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-5472-1.ch031  
 
Bristol, L. (2012). Plantation Pedagogy: A Postcolonial and Global Perspective. New York, USA: Peter Lang. ISBN: 978-1-4331-1715-2

Additional Info

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=XYeYtB8AAAAJ&hl=en
 
ORCID ID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9917-1392  
 
Web of Science: http://www.webofscience.com/wos/author/record/[HTO-5110-2023   
 

Keywords

Practice Architecture; Plantation Pedagogy; School Transformation, Mentoring