Born and raised in Glasgow, Ralph has lived and taught in Kent for almost 40 years. Involved with Debating Matters since forever, he recognises the debates to be continuing evidence of those articulate and impassioned young people who rarely get the credit they deserve. With an academic background in sociology and politics, his teaching relates to Citizenship Education and to radical theories of education more generally, while his research currently examines perceptions held by young people in England and Sweden of themselves as citizens. This will appear in one of two books Ralph has to get to his publishers by summer 2019. Rather mundanely, Ralph gets his excitement from engaging in pointless discussions with total strangers (as well as friends) on Facebook, and from Hythe Town’s annual and ultimately doomed charge for promotion from Bostick South East Division 1. His grip on reality is further weakened as an avid reader of ‘Scandi noir’. He has a cat, Ruby.