Learning about Race Equality in Education from Scotland

17 Jul 2025

This event supports BERA’s ambitions of addressing racial inequity within the Association and the wider research community. It is important to showcase and learn from the best practices of anti-racist scholars in addressing racial injustice. Scotland is at the forefront of tackling racial injustices within educational settings. In 2021, staff and students led the “tackling racism on campus” project, in which all universities and colleges committed to embedding anti-racist practices in their institutions. In 2023, Scotland launched its first-ever anti-racism framework for initial teacher education, including guidance for initial teacher education providers and schools across Scotland. This event will allow the national and international education community, including researchers, teachers, community educators, and scholars, to hear from three scholars who have led anti-racist agendas in Scotland, focusing on research, policy and practice on anti-racism and decolonisation.

Draft Programme:

4:00pm Introducing the presenters; Saima Salehjee

4:05pm Looking through the lens of Anti-Racism ITE framework in Scotland;
Khadija Mohammed, University of West of Scotland

4:20pm Decoloniality: Critical Literacies & the Discursive-Material (Re)Design
of English Language & Literacy Teacher Education in Scotland; Navan
Govender, Strathclyde University

4:40pm Understanding Racism and Transforming Universities Cultures;
Nighet Nasim Riaz

5:00pm Q&A; Diane Warner, Cristine Callender, and Saima Salehjee

5:30pm Close

Speakers & Chairs

Saima Salehjee, Dr

Senior Lecturer in Education at Brunel University

Dr Saima Salehjee is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Brunel University London. She is responsible for teaching and research work, particularly on Science Education. Saima has received grants to continue her research with underprivileged...

Diane Warner, Dr

Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University

Dr Diane Warner is a senior lecturer in teacher education at Manchester Metropolitan University. She started in education as a primary school teacher and moved into initial teacher education in 2004 working on campuses in the North and South of...

Christine Callender, Professor

Professor of Educational Equity and Social Justice at University College London

Christine is an academic, lecturer and researcher of race in teacher education. She has been an educator for over twenty years, initially working in schools before moving to Higher Education. She was also a Regional Director for the National...

Khadija Mohammed, Dr

Associate Dean EDI at University of the West of Scotland

My own experiences as both a Teacher and Teacher Educator, working with young children in primary school, encourage me to consider ways to enthuse learners to participate as socially and morally responsible citizens. In order to do this, we need...

Nighet Riaz, Dr

EDI Policy Officer at University of Glasgow

Dr Nighet Riaz is an early careers researcher and associate lecturer in the University of the West of Scotland (UWS). Her research explores how young people and communities can become ‘othered’ fuelled by moral panics to tackle the perceived...

Race, Ethnicity and Education

The Race, Ethnicity and Education Special Interest Group challenges systems of oppression that demean and threaten to erase educators and learners of Global South heritage, through discussion and...

Special Interest Group