Professor Heather Smith
Professor of Race & Language Equality in Education,
School of Education, Communication and Language Science
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/ecls
heather.smith@ncl.ac.uk
0191 208 6820
I am a passionate advocate of the transformative role of education for social justice. My teaching and research focus on developing greater understandings about and action for race and language equality. Specifically, I draw on critical race theory (CRT) and critical understandings of whiteness. In working against discrimination of minoritized languages towards a just pedagogical approach, I draw on the theory/pedagogy of translanguaging (where all languages of a pupil are valorised and pupils are enabled to draw on all of their languaging practices in the pursuit of learning).
My recent research as PI (working alongside Professor Vini Lander, Leeds Beckett University) was a project to develop an anti-racism framework for Initial Teacher Education to support the racial literacy of teacher educators for their work with student teachers, in order tomitigate racial inequities in education. This led to the writing of an anti-racism framework for initial teacher education/trainingHome | AntiRacism Framework (anti-racism-framework.co.uk)
I was PI for an Erasmus funded European Project, entitled: ROMtels (Roma translanguaging enquiry learning space), which improved education for Roma pupils across Europe by enabling a translanguaging pedagogy (€261,317). ROMtelswas shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Awards 2020 Research Project of the Year (Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences).
I am Docent Chair of Multicultural Teacher Education at Helsinki University, Finland.
Publications
Articles
- Smith HJ. The doublespeak discourse of the race disparity dudit: An example of the White racial frame in institutional operation. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 2023, 44(1), 1-15.
- Smith HJ, Lander V. State of the Discipline of ITE/T in England and the urgent need for anti-racism. Research Intelligence 2023, (154), 20-21.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 HJS. Britishness and ‘the outsider within’: tracing manifestations of racist nativism in education policy in England. Prism: Casting New Light on Learning, Theory and Practice 2021, Early view
- Smith HJ, Robertson LH, Auger N, Wysocki L. Translanguaging as a political act with Roma: carving a path between pluralism and collectivism for transformation. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 2020, 18(1), 98-135.
- Smith HJ, Robertson L. SCT and Translanguaging-to-learn: Proposed Conceptual Integration. Language and Sociocultural Theory 2020, 6(2), 213-233.Smith HJ, Wysocki L. Roma Translanguaging Enquiry Learning Space (ROMtels). EAL Journal 2020, Autumn 2020, 41-44.
- Smith HJ. Britishness as racist nativism: a case of the unnamed ‘other’. Journal of Education for Teaching 2016, 42(3), 298-313.
- Smith HJ. A National Curriculum For All: A Cautionary Tale. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy 2014, 11(1), 35-37.
- Smith HJ. Emotional responses to documentary viewing and the potential for transformative teaching. Teaching Education 2013, 25(2), 217-238.
- Smith H. A critique of the teaching standards in England (1984-2012): discourses of equality and maintaining the status quo. Journal of Education Policy 2013, 28(4), 427-448.
- Smith HJ, Lander V. Collusion or collision: effects of teacher ethnicity in the teaching of critical whiteness. Race, Ethnicity and Education 2012, 15(3), 331-351.
- Smith HJ. The social and private worlds of speech: Speech for inter- and intramental activity. Modern Language Journal 2007, 91(3), 341-356.
- Smith H. Playing a different game: The contextualised decision-making processes of minority ethnic students in choosing a higher education institution. Race Ethnicity and Education 2007, 10(4), 415-437.
- Smith H. Playing to learn: A qualitative analysis of bilingual pupil-pupil talk during board game play. Language and Education 2006, 20(5), 415-437.
- Wall K, Higgins S, Smith H. ‘The visual helps me understand the complicated things’: pupil views of teaching and learning with interactive whiteboards. British Journal of Educational Technology 2005, 36(5), 851-867
- Smith HJ, Higgins S, Wall K, Miller J. Interactive whiteboards: Boon or bandwagon? A critical review of the literature. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 2005, 21(2), 91-101.
Book Chapters
- Smith HJ. Journey towards a Translanguaging Pedagogy for Social Justice: from school French to Critical Race Theory. In: G. Prasad, N. Auger, & E. Le Pichon Vorstman, ed. Multilingualism and Education: Researchers’ Pathways and Perspectives. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022, pp.256-263.
- Jones H, Smith HJ. Teaching for Social Justice: Creating equity for pupils living in poverty and those from black and minority ethnic backgrounds. In: Cremin T; Burnett C, ed. Learning to Teach in the Primary School 4th Edition. Routledge, 2018.Smith HJ. Britishness as racist nativism: a case of the unnamed ‘other’. In: Lander, V, ed. Fundamental British Values. London: Routledge, 2018.
- Lugendo D, Smith HJ. Scaffolding for mediated learning during ‘whole-class exercises’ in Kenyan Secondary English lessons. In: Jenks, CJ and Seedhouse, P, ed. International Perspectives on ELT Classroom Interaction. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015, pp.129-148.