Heather Smith is Professor of Race and Language Equality in Education at Newcastle University. She is a critical race theory scholar. Her teaching and research focus on developing greater understandings about and action for race and language equality, and includes critical analyses of education policy, anti-racism in initial teacher education, and a critical focus on translanguaging in offering an emancipatory pedagogy for multilingual pupils. She is joint author of the anti-racism framework for ITE/T (Home | AntiRacism Framework (anti-racism-framework.co.uk)). She was principal investigator for an Erasmus+ European Project, entitled: ROMtels (Roma translanguaging enquiry learning space), which improved education for Roma pupils through a translanguaging languages for dignity pedagogical approach (€261,317), the extended version of which was shortlisted for Research Project Of The Year (Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences) at the 2020 Times Higher Education Awards. Her recent publications include:

Smith HJ, Lander V. Finding ‘pockets of possibility’ for anti-racism in a curriculum for student teachers: from absence to action. The Curriculum Journal 2023, 34(1), 22-42.

Smith HJ. De-racialisation. In (Sardoč, M., Ed.) Encyclopedia of Diversity. Springer, 2026. In Press.

Smith HJ. Racist Nativism. In (Sardoč, M., Ed.) Encyclopedia of Diversity. Springer, 2026. In Press.