Dr Bruce Hurst

Overview

Bruce Hurst is a researcher in the emerging field of Outside School Hours Care (OSHC). I am particularly interested in OSHC from the perspectives of children, engaging them in research as informants, research designers and data analysers. My research draws on feminist and poststructural theories to disrupt rarely questioned assumptions about childhood, that underestimate children’s citizenship in what are complex leisure and care settings. My research has shown children to be active and political in the delivery of OSHC. I am the Deputy Chair of the Community Child Care Association.

One important project for the next 3 years is the To make the Invisible Visble (TIV) international research network. The collaboration aims to build a research network to explore, explain and compare the content and the practical implementation of the concept didactics in School Age Educare Centers (SAEC) in Sweden, Switzerland and Australia. The network will share and transfer knowledge and insights, to gain new perspectives internationally and to be able to define a theoretical didactic platform for SAEC. One important aim of the research network is to produce versatile and in-depth, research- knowledge that can contribute to international insights about didactics in SAEC and thus be able to create a foundation for the work of SAEC practitioners. The network will produce collaborative publications drawing on current empirical research, official statistical and various countries' policy documents. Further, this research will be disseminated within national networks involving regional networks as well stakeholders and policy makers. Thus, the long-term aim of the network is to expand, establish and maintain a collaborative international and national network to provide a base of expertise within didactics in SAEC. To our knowledge this is the first ever significant SAEC research project to attract funding, and will play a vital role in highlighting the importance of SAEC in each country.

Publications

Hurst, B. (2020). Re-theorising the pre-adolescent child in School Age Care. Global Studies of Childhood, 10(2), 120-130. doi:10.1177/2043610619863071Hurst, B. (2019). Play and leisure in Australian School Age Care: Reconceptualizing children’s waiting as a site of play and labour. Childhood, 26(4), 462-475.