Dr Helen Carr

School of Education
Lecturer in Secondary Education (History and Geography)

Contact details

Email
h.carr.2@bham.ac.uk
Address
School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston
Birmingham
B15 2TT
UK

Helen is a Lecturer in Secondary Teacher Education and is the lead tutor on the PGDipEd Secondary History course in the School of Education. She is also co-lead on the Secondary Geography course.

She is a qualified history teacher and has experience working in schools in the East Riding of Yorkshire and Cairo, Egypt. She also has extensive experience working with schools across the country on Holocaust education and has a background in Holocaust teacher education. experience working for charities in the education sector.

Helen completed a PhD on the history of education in England in 2018 at Birkbeck College. University of London. Her research and teaching interests include the history of racial and religious diversity in Britain, multiculturalism, the history of state-funded religious schooling and the teaching of sensitive, contested and controversial histories.

Qualifications

  • 2013 – 2018 PhD History (Birkbeck College, University of London)
  • 2017 PGCert in Higher Education (Birkbeck College, University of London)
  • 2010-2012 MEd (University of Hull)
  • 2004-2005 PGCE Secondary (History) (University of Hull)
  • 1999-2003 MA Hons Modern History (University of St Andrews)

Biography

Helen’s background spans education in primary and secondary schools and universities. She worked as a history teacher at schools in Hull, the East Riding of Yorkshire and Cairo before completing a PhD exploring the responses of the state education system in England to the arrival of a large number of Muslim children in schools in the second half of the twentieth century. Helen has also worked for Edexcel as an examiner for A Level and GCSE History since 2005. Her higher education teaching experience includes lecturing on race, migration and multiculturalism at Birkbeck College and teaching courses including modern British history and historical study skills.

Whilst teaching at an international school in Cairo, Helen completed a Masters in Education, conducting research into the teaching of the Holocaust in Egypt. Since 2014, she has worked for the Holocaust Educational Trust, both as an education officer overseeing and delivering a Holocaust teacher training programme and as an educator leading groups of teachers and sixth formers on a programme centred on visits to Auschwitz Birkenau.

Teaching

PGDipEd (QTS) History

MA Teaching Studies

Doctoral research

PhD title
Muslims and the state education system: England c.1965-1997

Research

Helen’s research interests include the history of racial and religious diversity in Britain, multiculturalism, the history of state-funded religious schooling and the teaching of sensitive, contested and controversial histories. Her previous research work has included:

  • Historian in Residence at the think tank Bright Blue
  • Research Assistant, Immigration, Antisemitism and Toleration in Western Europe Today
  • Research Assistant, Sub-report on Antisemitism in public debate following Operation Protective Edge, All Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism

Publications

Articles 

Helen Carr (2020) ‘I think you have ignored the relevant provisions of the 1944 Education Act’: Muslims, the state and education in England c.1966–c.1985, Contemporary British History, DOI: 10.1080/13619462.2020.1799351 

Reviews 

Helen Carr (2018) European Muslim antisemitism: Why young urban males say they don’t like Jews, Journal of Modern Jewish Studies, 17:2, 258-259, DOI: 10.1080/14725886.2018.1430525 

Other 

Paul Ruenz and Helen Carr (2019) Come for the mission, stay for the skills: Six lessons from linking researcher development and fair access

The Conversation, ‘The school Cat Stevens built: how Conservative politicians opposed funding for Muslim School in England’, June 2022