Professor Becky Francis is Professor of Education and Social Justice at King’s College London. She has followed a research career focusing on education and social justice, but has also incorporated education policy work, for example in her previous role as Director of Education at the RSA, and in her current Advisory role to the Education Select Committee.

Becky is best known for her work on gender and achievement. Her policy research and analysis includes her recent influential work on ‘Satisfactory’ schools, in relation to social disadvantage, work for ASCL and the Sutton Trust on education and social mobility, and her direction of the Academies Commission. Her academic expertise and extensive publications centre on social identities (gender, ‘race’ and social class) in educational contexts, social im/mobility, and social identity and educational achievement, and gender theory. She has written many books on these topics, including the most recent Identities and Practices of High Achieving Pupils (2012, Continuum, with Christine Skelton and Barbara Read).