Educational Studies blog

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Spotlight interview: Amina Shareef

We have a series of blog posts introducing colleagues who have recently joined Goldsmiths’ Educational Studies Department. Find out more about their role at Goldsmiths, why they decided to join, the areas they teach and what they do during their spare time! This gives you a glimpse of the vibrant research and teaching community at our department.

Dr Amina Shareef, Lecturer in Education, joined Goldsmiths in September 2023

What was your role before you came to GS?

I was a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

Tell us a bit about your research and teaching expertise – what do you specialize in?

My research is animated by an abiding interest in understanding how young British Muslim women are subjected by power—made into liberal female subjects—by anti-Muslim racism. My understanding of anti-Muslim racism is grounded in the discourse and practice of the War on Terror on the home-front, particularly the PREVENT policy which I take as a gendered regime of security. And I am particularly interested, following Saba Mahmood’s work on secularization, in understanding how the management of British Muslim populations takes place through the remaking of religious subjectivities into liberal subjectivities.

What drew you to Goldsmiths? And to the department?

I was drawn to the department of Educational Studies at Goldsmiths by its reputation for being committed to the project of racial justice and for encouraging radical intellection in the areas of race and racism. I was also drawn by the diversity that is reflected in the student body which I see as an opportunity for a rich and meaningful teaching experience.

Which programmes do you teach on here and what your contribution to those programmes?

I teach on both the MA and BA programs at the Department of Educational Studies. On the BA program, I teach on a number of modules. They are: Culture and Identity, Race and Representation, Children’s Cultures, Children and the Construction of Identity, and Youth Cultures. I also supervise undergraduate and master’s dissertations.

What makes the programme(s) interesting and important? How do you think potential students might benefit from taking the programme?

What makes the BA programme an incredible program is that it offers our students a more analytical perspective on educational institutions and systems. Our program allows our students to explore the following questions: What is education? How is education experienced by young people? How do educational systems intersect with other axes of domination such as race, class, gender, and nation? Whose knowledge counts as knowledge? How are identity and belonging produced through education? Our program gives potential teachers a robust understanding of the system of which they are a part as well as frameworks for doing education differently. Our program nicely positions our students for pursuing a master’s and doctoral degree in the future if they so wish to do so.

What do you do in your spare time?

What spare time! Between work and my two young sons, I do manage to find some time to pursue a pastime beyond research and teaching. I am active in anti-racist advocacy that serves marginalized communities in Britian. And I am currently training to run my first half-marathon in October!

What reading/books/resources would you recommend to students who might be thinking of taking your programme?

Some of the areas of critical thinking that have been fundamental in making me into the researcher and teacher that I am have been Islamophobia Studies, Critical Race Theory, Black Studies and Feminist thought. Arun Kundnani, Sherene Razack, and Mimi Thai Nguyen have been some of my favourite thinkers.

Learn more about Dr Amina Shareef’s teaching and research.

Learn more about the Staff at the Educational Studies Department.

Learn more about BA Education at Goldsmiths.

Spotlight Interview: Chris Millora

Dr Chris Millora, Lecturer in Education, joined Goldsmiths in August 2023

What was your role before you came to Goldsmiths?

I was Senior Research Associate with the UNESCO Chair in Adult Literacy and Learning for Social Transformation at the University of East Anglia in Norwich. I also completed my PhD at UEA in 2021.

Tell us a bit about your research and teaching expertise – what do you specialize in?

My research interest is around the role of literacy and learning in youth social movements. I currently lead a 3-year research project called Literacies of Dissent where I work with youth activists in the Philippines (where I’m from!) and Chile to explore how they learn in/through their activist work. More generally, I am interested in learning and literacy in everyday life (beyond school settings). I think we can learn a lot about social justice and social change by understanding how individuals acquire knowledge and skills through everyday tasks such as volunteering, praying together, setting up online campaigns etc! I also work a lot internationally – either researching in or collaborating with colleagues in places like Malawi, Nepal, Ethiopia, South Africa and of course, the Philippines. I am also concerned about how research can reach wider audiences so I work with civil society organisations with whom I share similar vision like the Global Campaign for Education (South Africa) and the International Association for Volunteer Effort. Here in the UK, I Chair the British Association of Literacy in Development.

What drew you to Goldsmiths? And to the department?

Like Goldsmiths, I also believe that social justice should be at the heart of what we learn and how we teach. I was also attracted to Goldsmiths’ long history of student activism: for many years many students and young people here have been working towards shaping the kind of education they want. That, for me, provides an excellent context for teaching and research.

Which programmes do you teach on here and what your contribution to those programmes?

I teach at the Department’s MA Education: Culture, Language and Identities (which will soon be renamed to MA Social Justice in Education). I contribute to various modules on topics such as educational reform and student movements, global education, family literacy and indigenous learning; youth social action and participatory research methods. I am also involved in MA dissertation supervision. In terms of research, I am part of the Centre for Identities and Social Justice – one of the many exciting research groups that you can be part of if you study MA or MPhil/PhD with us!

What makes the programme(s) interesting and important? How do you think potential students might benefit from taking the programme?

Our programmes at Goldsmiths explore fundamental questions on how education and social justice interlink. Our students are invited to think critically and radically with us – asking difficult questions. Our sessions are designed in a way that students are encouraged to draw from their own experiences and reflect on how our classroom discussions are applicable to their real-life situations and challenges. The programmes also have a strong ‘action’ component that students can then take further in their own work and interests! For me, these aspects make our programmes excellent foundations for advancing one’s career.

What do you do in your spare time?

I’ve been trying to get better at playing guitar and I promised myself to finally take guitar lessons (wish me luck!). I also like reading fiction. Last year I challenged myself to reading 12 novels for the year – I ended up doing 18! I also recently moved to London which is so exciting, so been trying to get to know the city more.

What reading/books/resources would you recommend to students who might be thinking of taking your programme?

There’s a lot of really great scholars exploring education and social justice from various perspectives. You have the work of Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Arturo Escobar Encountering Development. If you’re interested in informal learning, I recommend Alan Rogers’ The Base of the Iceberg and Uta Papen’s Adult Literacy: More than Skills – both are excellents book where complex ideas are explained really simply.

Learn more about Dr Chris Millora’s teaching and research.

Learn more about the Staff at the Educational Studies Department.

Learn more about the MA Education, Culture, Language and Identities and other MA Programmes.

Parklife researchers spread the word the People’s Day Festival!

Note the Parklife billing at 2pm!

Last Saturday, 16th July 2022, our intrepid young Parklife researchers braved the heat and delivered a blistering performance of their work on the Climate Action stage.

It was a truly memorable experience. I arrived early at the People’s Day Festival, but it was already teeming with people. This festival, possibly the most famous ‘free’ festival in London, had not run for four years, so this year it was special. Funded in part by Lewisham Council as part of their London Borough of Culture year, it featured some of the most notable young artists of recent years: reggae star: Grammy-nominated reggae singer Tippa Irie, Hollie Cook with her own brand of ‘tropical pop’, South London’s favourite disco band, All Day Breakfast Café, Homegrown grime MC Novelist headlines, singer-songwriter Nina Ros, Lewisham-raised 1Xtra DJ Shahlaa Tahira curates a line-up of local musicians, alongside rappers Koder and Sharna Cane and CassKidd. So there was stiff competition!

Nevertheless, the young co-researchers in the Parklife Project really rose to the challenge of the heat, the crowds, the other distractions, and produced a marvellous performance which showcased the poetry which they have written as part of the project. The Parklife project has been innovative because it has used the poetry, art, pictures, photographs and films which these young people have been created as the basis for research into local parks. In this case, Fordham Park. Fresh from the success of their Advocacy Day, where these young researchers held local councillors, park management and other community organisations to account and presented their work (read this blog), the young people shared their work in a much truncated form, no less interactive. Watch performance poet, Laila Sumpton, introduce them here (please ignore my annoying whooping):

Here Laila reads the Parklife poem (again ignore my annoying contributions, apologies about that):

Here Anna Stewart explains the project in more depth:

The poems that the young people read were hard-hitting and focused upon the themes of litter, safety and youth engagement. The Parklife researchers had found out a great deal by writing their poetry, creating their art, making their films, and conducting more formal research such as surveying staff and pupils’ views about their local park, Fordham Park, at Deptford Green school. They were supervised by their teacher, Ms Alice Player, who is also a wonderful leader singer and guitarist of the Sundries.

The Goldsmiths’ students who were part of the project, and absolutely instrumental in training up the young co-researchers in various creative research techniques, as well as making the Parklife film, also presented at the festival. They explained the project’s aims and approaches, and also involved the audience in a fun ‘Parklife’ quiz, which I took part in as a contestant. I received some sweets because of my efforts!

The whole project was funded by the Goldsmiths’ Strategic Research Fund and supervised by the Head of Civic Engagement, Michael Eades, who supported us on the day too. Goldsmiths put on a great show overall: they had a tent which highlighted the incredible work they’ve been doing connected to South London history, and the Windrush generation. You can learn more about this here on the ‘living memory’ webpage they’ve set up to highlight their research.

Goldsmiths’ invitation for Londoners to share their histories highlighted in a marquee near the stage where the Parklifers performed.

Here is the whole Parklife Team assembled at the end of what was a triumphant performance:

The Parklife Research Team. I am sitting down in the silly shirt.

If you haven’t done so, watch the wonderful Parklife film which the young people and Goldsmiths’ students made:

Welcome to the Department of Educational Studies blog

This is the first ever post on what aims to become an important blog for both Goldsmiths and for the world of education more generally. This blog will host all the wonderful programmes that make up the Department of Educational Studies.

It is a more informal space than our official webpages, which you can find here.

This blog seeks to be a lively, thought-provoking commentary on what is happening in our department; it should be at all times illuminating and engaging, sometimes controversial and rarely boring!

So sit back, relax and enjoy reading it!