Division of Psychiatry Seminar - Professor Heidi Safia Mirza

Heidi Safia Mirza is Emeritus Professor of Equality Studies in Education at UCL Institute of Education and Visiting Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London and the LSE. She is known for her pioneering research on race, gender and identity in education and has an international reputation for championing equality and human rights for Black, Muslim, Asian women and young people through educational reform. A daughter of the Windrush generation from Trinidad and schooled in Brixton, Heidi is one of the first and few female professors of colour in UK. She is author of several best-selling books including Young Female and Black, which was voted in the BERA top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain. Professor Mirza is a leading voice in the global debate on decolonisation and recently co-edited the flagship book, ‘Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy’. She is currently co-authoring ‘Race and Ethnicity’ for the IFS Deaton Inequality Review which includes the impact of COVID-19 on Black and minority ethnic communities.

In the workshop I draw on my research on the pedagogic practices of teacher educators and their dilemmas of teaching students from different race, faiths and cultures. I explore the difficult concept of ‘spaces of safety’ which offers us the radical possibility of transcending the ‘stuck’ institutional discourses of ‘diversity’ and racial equality which dominates our educational landscapes in so called ‘post-race times’. In this participatory session we conclude by developing an engaged pedagogy that enables us as professional educators in the academy to do the challenging ‘embodied’ intersectional work to truly move toward ‘decolonising’ our places of teaching and learning.

The Division of Psychiatry monthly seminars showcase the latest mental health research that will be of interest to students and staff at UCL. We invite researchers from diverse occupational backgrounds with a wide range of topics presented throughout the year.