Staff profile

My research centres around compassion, early childhood education environments, holistic well-being and sustainability.  Currently I am a career development fellow in the School of Education where I also completed my ESRC funded PhD.

I am also an ECR member of the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, as well as a qualified early childhood education and Montessori teacher, and Research Affiliate of the Flourish Project.

My doctoral study entitled ‘Towards Communities of Compassion: Exploring What Affords a Compassion Enabling Environment in Early Childhood Education’, is a multi-sited ethnography using creative analytic practices. This explores what opportunities early childhood education (ECE) environments afford for experiencing compassion and the barriers/challenges to this, and illuminates what constitutes a compassion enabling environment. Through taking a holistic look at the ECE environment it provides a deepened understanding of compassion in ECE environments. In particular, the results shift the anthropocentric perspective of compassion, illustrating the interrelation between ECE environments and children’s and adults’ experiences of compassion, alongside what enables realising it and opportunities afforded.

Most recently I contributed to the Child of the North’s report (2025) ‘An evidence-based approach to creating a culture of inclusive opportunity through arts and creativity’.

• Compassion, global citizenship, sustainability and well-being
• Early Childhood Education
• Early learning environments
• Experiences with/in ECE spaces
• Young children's experiential learning
• Montessori Approach

• 2023: Research Affiliate, Flourish Project:
• 2020: ESRC NINE DTP Studentship Award:
• 2000: Project Manager National Children's Day UK:
• 2000: Director of The Children's Voice:
• 2000: Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy :
• 2000: Peer Reviewer: European Early Childhood Education Research Journal:
• 2000: Board of Directors Save Childhood Movement:

Chapter in book

• Broadfoot, H. (2024). The Compassion–Resilience Connection: Their Place in Early Childhood Education in a Global Arena. In Z. Nikiforidou, B. Anderson, & W. Robles-Melendez (Eds.), Resilience and Wellbeing in Young Children, Their Families and Communities: Exploring Diverse Contexts, Circumstances and Populations (113-129). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003345664-10

Conference Paper

• Zhang, Y. (2022, October). Researching Chinese Students in the UK - the Use of Ethnography in Social Media Studies. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom
• Chen, W. (2022, October). Can Teaching Enthusiasm Partially Predict the Reading Attainment of Low-income Students in Secondary Schools in England?. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom

Conference Proceeding

• (2022, October). Imagining Better Education: Conference Proceedings 2022. Presented at Imagining Better Education 2022, Durham, United Kingdom

Journal Article

• Broadfoot, H., & Pascal, C. (2021). An exploration of what conditionsfacilitate experiences of compassion in one early childhood community. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 29(6), 910-924. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2021.1985558
• Broadfoot, H., & Pascal, C. (2020). Exploring experiences of compassion in the daily rhythms of one early childhood community. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 28(4), https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293x.2020.1783922

Other (Digital/Visual Media)

• Broadfoot, H. (2022). Importance of compassion and its link with SDG13 climate action. [Online Teaching Resource]