Meet the Project Team

Prof Karl Kitching

Professor of Public Education, University of Birmingham

Karl leads this research project, overseeing all aspects. He is a former primary school teacher, and he has conducted a range of studies on inequalities in education, childhood, and young people’s lives. Karl has published internationally peer-reviewed papers 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 is the author of two key books on race and religion in education, childhood, and youth. The first, The Politics of Compulsive Education: Racism and Learner-Citizenship (Routledge 2014) explores how racism, education and resistance have been entangled in Ireland from the colonial to the global age, and examines anti-racism in education as a form of learner-citizenship. The second, Childhood, Religion and School Injustice (Cork University Press 2020), examines how children and parents negotiate secular-religious relations and inequalities across school contexts.

Prof Reza Gholami

Professor of Sociology of Education, University of Birmingham

Reza co-leads this mixed methods research project by managing the quantitative component on the nation-wide survey and advising the qualitative component on education policy analysis, elite interviewing, and participatory research with youth and communities in Birmingham and London. Reza has rounded scholarship and experience in research focusing on a range of issues, namely the impact of transnationality and diversity on education practice and policy, inequalities/inequities in education access and outcomes (especially related to Islamophobia and secularism), educational responses to extremism, and innovative models of (citizenship) education for the future. Reza is a well-known public speaker and author of many internationally peer-reviewed articles, including the book Secularism and Identity: Non-Islamiosity in the Iranian Diaspora (Routledge 2015) and the co-edited book Education and Extremisms: Rethinking Liberal Pedagogies in the Contemporary World.

Dr Asli Kandemir

Research Fellow (Qualitative and Mixed Methods Focus), Youth Engagement with Race and Faith at School project, University of Birmingham

Asli is primarily responsible for the qualitative component by conducting participatory research with young people and communities in Birmingham, undertaking education policy analysis, and interviewing key policy stakeholders, and supports the quantitative component on the nation-wide survey with Year 10 pupils and teachers. She also administers the project website and social media accounts. Asli’s research interests lie at sociology of inequalities, ‘race’/ethnicity, and education. She has a number of internationally peer-reviewed publications on symbolic border(-making), ‘race’ and racism in (education) policy-making, and qualitative research methods as well as mentoring. Asli is currently writing her first book on tolerance, power, and community cohesion, exploring how the value of tolerance is instrumentalised through education policy and political discourse to govern ethnic communities and youth, and reinstate cultural hierarchy in Britain.

Dr Md. Shajedur Rahman

Research Fellow (Quantitative and Mixed Methods Focus), Youth Engagement with Race and Faith at School project, University of Birmingham

Shajed is primarily responsible for the quantitative component by conducting the nation-wide survey with Year 10 pupils and teachers, and supporting the qualitative component on participatory research with youth and communities in London. He is experienced in the area of education and international development, with expertise in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method social research. Shajed’s research interests include sociology of education, Teachers Professional Development (TPD) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) and other resource-restricted contexts, international and comparative education, ethnography (especially researchers’ positionality during ethnographic fieldwork), critical realism, and decolonising educational research. Shajed has a wide track record of publications in internationally peer-reviewed journals and edited books.