Race, Education & Intersectionality: getting the balance right

Location: Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AL, Room 822

Centre for Race & Education and Society for Educational Studies: National Seminar Series 2014

In a series of four seminars, held throughout 2014, we are 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, dis/ability 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.

Using critical race research: media, policy and practitioner perspectives

Dr Adrienne Dixson is an Associate Professor of Critical Race Theory and Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her scholarship examines the intersectionality of race, class and gender in urban educational contexts, with a particular interest in how these issues impact educational equity for students and people of colour in the urban south.

Her work is widely published in academic journals and edited books. Her most recent books include Critical Race Theory and Education: All God’s Children Got a Song, Handbook of Critical Race Theory and Education, Resegregation of schools: Education and race in the 21st Century (Routledge) and upcoming Researching race in education: Policy, Practice and Qualitative Research (IAP Publishing).

Marcus Ryder is the Editor of Current Affairs BBC Scotland responsible for all BBC Current Affairs programmes produced by Scotland for BBC audiences across the UK (including Panorama). He has won several awards for his journalism including Baftas, Royal Television Society Awards and Foreign Press Awards.He is also the Chair of the Royal Television Society Diversity Committee and is currently studying for a PhD at Bournemouth University on News and Current Affairs television commissioning in the UK.

Light refreshments will be available.

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.