Margaret Sutherland

She read French and German at Glasgow University and graduated with a first class degree in 1942. She was awarded the Herkless Prize as the most distinguished woman graduate of the year in Arts. She taught in secondary schools in Glasgow and while doing so also took the degree of M.Ed.

In 1947, she moved to Queen’s University, Belfast, to a lectureship in the Education Department. She took her PhD there in 1955, and in addition to her academic work, she served as vice-chair of the Northern Ireland Advisory Council for Education, as president of the Society for Autistic Children and as a member of the Council for Nurses and Midwives.

In 1971, her book Everyday Imagining and Education was published. This drew on a number of psychological and educational themes to illustrate the workings of the imagination in everyday life.

In 1973, Leeds University appointed her head of the then Department of Education, the post carrying a professorship. Three years later, that department merged with the Institute of Education, and Professor Sutherland was made Dean of the Faculty, and from 1978 to 1980 was chair of the Faculty Board.

She continued to develop her interest in the psychology of education, in comparing different approaches to education and in how the education of boys and girls differed. In Sex Bias in Education, published in 1981, she argued that in terms of the type of education a child receives, abilities and interests should be given greater weight than the child’s sex.

In 1994 with a collaborator, Claudine Baudoux, she produced Femmes et Éducation: Politiques Nationales et Variations Internationales.

Comparative studies had, in fact, become central to Professor Sutherland’s research interests.

In 1985 she published Women who teach in Universities, a comparative study of the career perceptions of women academics in France, East and West Germany, Finland and the United Kingdom.

It was a mark of her international standing that Professor Sutherland received many invitations to present papers at institutions and conferences in many parts of the world. She also served for some years as editor of the British Journal of Educational Studies.

Nationally, she served on both the Education Sub-Committee of the University Grants Committee (UGC) and on the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers.

Professor Sutherland retired from the University in 1985 when the title of Emeritus Professor was conferred upon her.