Understanding race equality in education: now and in the future

National Seminar Series 2014: Race, Education & Intersectionality: getting the balance right

This was the first in a series of seminars exploring the uses of intersectionality as a tool in critical social research, scholarship and
activism. ‘Intersectionality’ is a widely-used (sometimes mis-used) term in contemporary social science. The term addresses the question of how various different forms of inequality and identity inter-relate in different contexts and over time, e.g. the inter-connectedness of race, class, gender, disability etc. The term originated in the work of US critical race theorist Kimberlé Crenshaw but has been taken up very widely across the social sciences; indeed, there is now a danger of it losing its critical element and becoming entirely detached from a concern with race equality.

Professor Laurence Parker is Professor of Educational Leadership & Policy at the University of Utah. USA. He is one of the foundational educational scholars to use Critical Race Theory (CRT) having co-edited the volume ‘Race Is… Race Isn’t: Critical Race Theory and Qualitative Studies in Education’ (1999, Westview Press). He has been honored by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) for Service for Editorship of the Review of Research in Education (vols. 29 & 31).  

He is also a receipient of the Derrick Bell Legacy Award (from the Critical Race Studies Association), which honors commitment to advancing social justice and educational equity through teaching, research, writing, and/or direct community action. He has developed and taught classes on critical race theory and education policy issues and has concentrated his research and teaching in this area as it relates to equity and education, both K-12 and higher education.

Dr Paul Warmington is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the University of Birmingham, and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education. Paul has worked in further and higher education for twenty-five years. He has taught, research and written extensively around access, equalities and race & ethnicity. His latest book is "Black British Intellectuals and Education: multiculturalism's hidden history", published by Routledge.

Paul drew upon his book in discussing the importance of black and anti-racist movements in shaping education and social justice in the UK.

The series is funded by the Society for Educational Studies (SES), organized by the Centre for Research in Race & Education (CRRE) at the University of Birmingham and hosted in collaboration with the Sociology Section of the Institute of Education, University of London.