Resilience, activism and the academy: the next generation of Critical Race Theory in education

The CRRE national seminar series, sponsored by the Society for Educational Studies (SES), has begun to establish a vital critical space where educators, researchers and activists engaged in race equality work meet together to discuss new research evidence and share their experiences.

This fourth seminar featured presentations by three leading international scholars, each exploring emerging directions in critical race scholarship. 

Understanding minority ethnic academic flight from UK higher education

Dr Kalwant Bhopal is Reader in Education at the University of Southampton. She has just completed research funded by the Equality Challenge Unit exploring reasons for academic flight from the UK for minority ethnic groups. She has published widely on the experiences of Black and minority ethnic groups in relation to educational achievement and progression. She is writing a book examining the experiences of Black and minority ethnic academics working in UK and USA universities, to be published by Routledge in 2015.        

 The Presence and Defence of Racism: A Black Professor Reflects

Professor Kevin Hylton: Professor of Equality and Diversity in Sport, Leisure and Education, Carnegie Faculty, Leeds Beckett University.

As the first black Professor in over 75 years of Carnegie Faculty history, Professor Hylton brings a voice to the sociology of sport, leisure and education that reflects an intricate engagement with the endemic issues that mark race relations in the UK. Professor Hylton has emerged at the forefront of developments on Critical Race Theory (CRT) nationally and internationally. A team of Routledge academic editors and advisers recommended Race and Sport: Critical Race Theory as one of the top ten resources for teaching undergraduates to think critically about the role of sport in society.

Kevin is Chair of the Leeds Beckett University Race Equality and Diversity Forum, a Board Member for social justice organisation Just West Yorkshire, and Editorial Board Member for the International Review for the Sociology of Sport.

Anything but race? Beyond the 'good student' approach to anti-racism in Ireland

Dr Karl Kitching is a lecturer in the School of Education, University College Cork and a member of Anti-Deportation Ireland. His recent research includes The Politics of Compulsive Education: Racism and Learner-Citizenship (Routledge monograph 2014), and the Irish Research Council funded study 'Making Communion: Disappearing and Emerging Forms of Childhood in Ireland'.

 In this talk Karl will reflect on the spaces available in various sites of education to talk about race and racism in Ireland, and his own positioning therein. Drawing on his recent book The Politics of Compulsive Education: Racism and Learner-Citizenship (Routledge 2014) he will argue that the main form of anti-racism available, if at all, is that which is compatible with assimilationist discourses of the good migrant student, good Traveller student, or indeed the benevolent (white, ethnic Irish) host. Karl will also talk about certain strategic and unexpected points where the goals of critical race praxis may be, and are being animated in Irish education. These include exploring the relationship between state borders, migration and education, and contesting the articulation of racisms through currently reformulating intersections of religion, youth, class and gender.

Attention Postgraduate students!

Travel bursaries of up to £50 per seminar are available on a first-come first-served basis for up to fifteen attendees per seminar. Please contact d.gillborn@bham.ac.uk for details.