Our mother, Alison Kelly, who has died of metastatic breast cancer aged 65, was a determined advocate for equality of opportunity and a tireless adventurer. As a sociologist working on the University of Manchester from 1976 to 1988, she co-directed the action research project Girls Into Science and Technology (Gist), concentrating on the science education of women.
Born in Earl’s Court, London, she went to highschool in Birmingham. Her experience because the only girl in her A-level physics class, followed by some extent in physics, an MSc in astrophysics and a PhD in educational statistics, convinced her that more girls would study “hard” sciences if the cultural and policy conditions were right. The Gist project was probably the most wide-ranging of its kind, and demonstrated that changing textbooks, raising teacher awareness, improving careers advice and providing positive female role models can have a dramatic impact on girls’ attitude to science and their career ambitions.
This rational exploration of the causes of inequality also drove her work from 1988 to 1996 at Stockport education authority, where she serious about using free school meals as a trademark of social deprivation in the case of school performance. This measure is now used nationwide to contextualise exam results and identify truly underperforming schools.
An activist by nature, Alison threw herself into causes starting from the renovation of the Pankhurst Centre in Manchester to the languishing local Liberal Democrats. Outspoken and direct, she was always filled with energy and committed. She was also an excellent adventurer. As a fifteen-year-old schoolgirl, she secretly hitchhiked to Rome with a chum to look the pope. Two childhood were spent teaching science in a girls’ convent school in Swaziland, followed by spells living in Sweden, the usa and latterly Luxembourg, where she played a key role within the British Ladies Club of Luxembourg and within the Network, a business women’s networking and mentoring organisation.
She was resolute that cancer and chemotherapy doesn’t stop her trekking within the Himalayas or strolling round Tiananmen Square. Even if she stayed in a single place, she brought the sector to her: along with her husband, Dan, whom she married in 1969, she brought us up in a global household in Manchester. We shared our home and lives with families from around the globe, including Turkey, Ireland, China, Ethiopia and (the then) Yugoslavia, a lot of whom remain good friends.
She is survived by Dan, us; her parents, Ronald and Jo; her brother, Chris, and sister, Viki; and two granddaughters, Georgina and Athena.
