Dr. Claire Lee
Research Fellow, Centre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University
Dr. Claire Lee is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Psychological Research, Oxford Brookes University. Her research focuses on creating spaces for dialogue with children, using arts-based methods to explore things that matter to them. Having been a Service child herself and a teacher in a school which served a large military base, she has a particular interest in the education of children from Armed Forces families. Claire completed a Masters degree at the University of Bristol School of Education in 2014, conducting a small-scale, arts-based study into the experiences and needs of primary-school-aged Service children. This work led to her being awarded Economic and Social Research Council funding for her arts-based doctoral research into the learning lives of children from UK Armed Forces families. This study, completed in 2020, involved working with eight children aged 9-11 for over a year. She has developed a reputation for ethical and evidence-informed approaches to Service children’s “voice”. Findings and recommendations from this research are available here: https://tinyurl.com/5n8j2a6p. Following further research during the COVID-19 pandemic, Claire joined Oxford Brookes University in 2021. She is currently leading two funded research projects, including the Supporting All to Thrive Project, funded by the Armed Forces Covenant Fund Trust under the MOD Armed Forces Family Fund Research Grant programme. This mixed methods study, which was completed in September 2025, investigated the educational outcomes and experiences of Service children with additional needs, as well as the experiences of their families in navigating the educational system.
