Karl joined the School of Education, University of Birmingham in June 2020. He started working in education as a primary school teacher in Dublin. Just before coming to Birmingham, he was a Senior Lecturer in Education, and Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion at University College Cork, Ireland.
Karl's research and teaching focuses on challenging multiple inequalities in education, in childhood, and in young people’s lives. Karl has published a range of internationally peer-reviewed articles on young people’s experiences of racism in school, race theory in education, the sexualisation of childhood, children’s religious identities at school, teacher motivation, and critical theory and pedagogy. He has also published two key books on the politics of racism and on religion in education, childhood and youth. The first, The Politics of Compulsive Education: Racism and Learner-Citizenship explores how racism, education and resistance have been entangled in Ireland from the colonial to the global age, and offers new ways of thinking about anti-racism in education as a form of learner-citizenship. The second book, Childhood, Religion and School Injustice examines how children and parents negotiate secular-religious relations and inequalities across school contexts. You can also listen to a New Books Network podcast discussing this book.
Karl is currently the Principal Investigator on the Leverhulme Trust (2022-2025) study 'Free' Expression at School? The Making of Youth Engagements with Race and Faith, in collaboration with Dr Reza Gholami. Using national surveys and in-depth case studies, this project will map the political, geographic, social and cultural conditions that 'make' youth expression on race and faith issues across school and public contexts in England, and particularly in Birmingham and London.