Professor Vini Lander
Professor of Race and Education and Director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality | Leeds Beckett
Leeds, England, UNITED KINGDOM
Her research examines race inequalities in education, specifically in teacher education.
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Biography
Professor Vini Lander is Professor of Race and Education and Director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality in the Carnegie School of Education at Leeds Beckett University. Her research examines race inequalities in education, specifically in teacher education. She is leading a study on the policy to promote fundamental British values in English schools and initial teacher education.
Vini has an international research profile including delivering keynote lectures and seminars on race, equality and diversity within the UK, in Germany and Sweden. She has worked in Oman and was a member of the ESRC-funded Diverse Teachers for Diverse Learners national and international network of teacher educators working with colleagues in Norway, Canada and the UK. She is a member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and co-convened the Race, Ethnicity and Education Special Interest group. She is a member of the steering group for the Centre for Literacy in Primary Education’s Reflecting Realities Project which is examining the representation of BAME characters in children’s literature.
Industry Expertise (2)
Research
Education/Learning
Areas of Expertise (5)
Race and Racism
Teacher Education
Inequalities in Education
Diversity
British Values in School
Accomplishments (3)
Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship
2014
Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
2014
Awarded the BERA Meeting of Minds Award
2011
Education (3)
Institute of Education, University of London: EdD 2011
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University of Southampton: MEd 1997
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King Alfred’s College of HE Winchester: BEd 1985
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Affiliations (1)
- British Educational Research Association : Member
Links (7)
- Leeds Beckett University Faculty Profile
- Google Scholar Profile
- ResearchGate Profile
- International Day for the Elimination of Racism 2022 – LBU Together Blog
- Talking Race Podcast Returns – Carnegie Education Blog
- Your movement matters - survey translated into six languages – carnegieXchange: School of Sport Blog
- The Conversation Author Profile
Languages (2)
- English
- Punjabi
Media Appearances (4)
‘We can’t be not racist, we have to be anti-racist’ - New podcast exploring racism hopes to inspire positive change
Yorkshire Post online
2020-07-28
“The podcasts have been designed to educate and inform people about racism and the lived experiences of racism in their everyday lives,” explains Professor Lander, director of the Centre for Race Education and Decoloniality in the university’s Carnegie School of Education.
Does he like me because I’m fun smart or simply because I’m not white?
Grazia Magazine print
2020-07-26
Professor Vini Lander, director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality at Leeds Beckett University, believes it’s easy for individuals to couch their racism in terms such as ‘personal preference’. ‘They appear to sound reasonable while still inflicting psychological and emotional trauma on a woman of colour,’ she says. ‘In other words, it is an act of racism.’
Predicted Grades and BAME Students
BBC Look North tv
2020-06-07
An interview concerning predicted grades and BAME students.
Exclusive: 'Teachers’ racist attitudes stuck in 1980s'
TES News online
2020-01-02
Professor of race and education Vini Lander from Leeds Beckett University claims teachers are not being prepared well enough to deal with a rise in racist incidents and hate crime in schools since the EU referendum.
Articles (12)
Resisting whiteness: Anti-racist leadership and professional learning in majority white senior leadership teams in English schools
The Curriculum Journal2022 Many Senior Leadership Teams (SLTs) are engaging in professional development to nurture explicitly anti-racist practice. Teachers' knowledge gaps about racism, its traumatic, lasting impact and how racism is generated through schooling persist within a cloak of silence.
Finding ‘pockets of possibility’ for anti-racism in a curriculum for student teachers: From absence to action
The Curriculum Journal2022 Many institutions have found the strength to name racism and seek space for curriculum and other systemic changes. We argue this is happening against a backdrop of curriculum, regulatory and policy changes in education, and particularly initial teacher education and training (ITE/T), which are de-racialised.
Seeing beyond: Perspectives of Black children in English ECEC
The Sage Handbook of Global Childhoods2021 In this chapter we draw together a number of threads to consider how Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) children’s experiences in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in England can be conceptualized. The contemporary policy context in ECEC sets the scene for how the curriculum is delivered.
Hopeful or Hopeless? Teacher Education in Turbulent Times
Regimes of Belonging, Schools and Migrations. Teaching in (Trans)National Constellations2021 Education policies and schooling in England continue to sustain if not exacerbate the simultaneous notions of assimilation into the mainstream whilst maintaining the discourse of the “Other” within. Teacher education continues to be part of an education system designed to assimilate Black, Asian and minority-ethnic school students be they newly arrived children of migrant families or born in England.
Cinderella academics: Teacher educators in the academy
Mentoring in Higher Education2020 Teacher educators are a diverse and essential part of the university workforce particularly in post-1992 universities in England. The majority of teacher educators have enjoyed successful careers as teachers and senior leaders in schools. However, their transition from school to university is fraught with difficulties.
Control beliefs of teacher educators regarding their research engagement
Educational Review2020 Strong evidence has emerged that teacher educators (TEs) should be directly and actively engaged in the research process. Despite this, relatively low levels of research activity have been observed.
“We’re not British values teachers are we?”: Muslim teachers’ subjectivity and the governmentality of unease
Educational Review2020 This paper is a critical investigation of a group of eight Muslim religious education (RE) teachers’ views of fundamental British values in education (FBV). Findings demonstrate that as teachers of multicultural RE, they experience dissonance accommodating the requirements of FBV, and are critical of its divisive effects upon their students.
To promote or not to promote Fundamental British values? – Teachers’ Standards, diversity and teacher education
British Educational Research Journal2016 In this article we seek to problematize the presence of the requirement within the teachers’ standards (DfE, 2012), that they ‘should not undermine fundamental British values’ in the context of initial teacher education in England.
‘I love a curry’: student-teacher discourse around ‘race’ and ethnicity at a UK university
Journal of Education for Teaching2019 This paper presents aspects of a small scale study that considered student teachers’ language and discourse around race and ethnicity at a university in the northwest of England.
Invisible and hypervisible academics: the experiences of Black and minority ethnic teacher educators
Teaching in Higher Education2016 This qualitative study investigated the experiences of Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) teacher educators in England and Australia working within the predominantly white space of the academy. Data analysis was informed by a multidimensional theoretical framework drawing on Critical Race Theory, whiteness and Puwar’s concept of the Space Invader.
‘Collision or Collusion: effects of teacher ethnicity in the teaching of whiteness’
Race Ethnicity and Education2011 Educational inequities persist in England today. Initial teacher educators are therefore charged with facilitating student teachers’ understanding of the issues pertaining to such inequities so they may work to disrupt them. Two lecturers at opposite ends of England, both with overwhelmingly White student cohorts, have approached this undertaking through the teaching of critical whiteness studies.
‘Race, culture and all that: An exploration of the perspectives of White secondary student teachers about race equality issues in their initial teacher education (ITE)’
Race Ethnicity and Education Vol 142011 This research explores the racialised perceptions of White students teachers who are preparing to teach in secondary schools in a diverse society. Student teachers’ views about Black and minority ethnic (BME) pupils are often cast in the language of otherness.
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