Education Access and Equity: Empowering Education with the Global South
This Signature Initiative aims to create an inclusive environment for scholars from the University of Birmingham and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to collaborate with educators, policymakers, researchers, and practitioners from the Global South and beyond. This project is founded on the principle of valuing all participants as knowledge contributors and knowers sharing an equal epistemic status. This initiative enables participants to discuss, design, experiment with, and implement innovative and culturally-responsive approaches that enhance education access and equity in Global South contexts. In particular, the project focuses on empowering marginalised communities, building capacity, amplifying their voices, and activating their agency in leading positive changes both in their local communities and on a global stage.
This Signature Initiative will generate research-informed evidence that contributes to policymaking, education planning, curriculum development, pedagogy, student and staff mobility, and professional development. The outputs will include academic publications, policy papers, teaching and learning resources, and the establishment of a global network. We invite everyone who has a passion for advancing education access and equity in the Global South to join this Signature Initiative and become an affiliated member of our network.
Go to upcoming events.
Project Leads
University of Birmingham
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Focus Areas
Focus area 1: Teacher Development and Capacity Building in Global South Context
- Illinois College of Education faculty who work on curriculum and instruction will collaborate with the Birmingham team on the project Teachers for Educational Equity (TEE) in Malaysia. As part of this wider project Dr Eleni Stamou and Dr Francesca Peruzzo from the Birmingham will work with colleagues from Illinois to further examine issues of Equity and Inclusion in the creation of Learning Communities through decolonial perspectives, bringing together insights from the Global South and the Global North.
- Dr Meng Tian (Birmingham), Dr Allison Wit (Illinois), and Dr Naima Qureshi (University of Education, Pakistan) are collaborating on a project titled Global Citizenship Education in Pakistan K-12 and Initial Teacher Education. This project leverages our research on global citizenship education, teacher capacity building, and arts-based methods to translate theoretical frameworks into tangible teacher competencies, global citizenship activities, and an increased sense of global awareness and collective responsibility among youth and teachers in Pakistan.
Focus area 2: Democratising Education Systems and Enhancing Opportunities for Underrepresented Groups in the UK and US
- Professor Christopher Millward and Dr Eleni Stamou (Birmingham) are collaborating with Professor Jon Hale and Professor Gabe Rodriguez (Illinois) on the YOUTH for Open Democratic Education project. Young people in the US and the UK alike, face the challenges of pronounced place-based inequalities and interwoven race, gender, and class barriers to democratic participation. Now more than ever, there is a need for putting young people at the forefront of authentic dialogue across the two sides of the Atlantic about reviving democracy and agency through education. The Youth-ODE project involves collaboration between young people, researchers, and informal education groups to re-make the boundaries between education and democratic engagement.
- Dr Meng Tian (Birmingham), Professor Jessica Li (Illinois) and Ms Sanam Yaqub (Birmingham campus in Dubai) are conducting the project Minoritised Staff Leadership Opportunities and Career Trajectories. This project investigates the leadership opportunities and career trajectories of minoritised academic and professional service staff working in higher education institutions in the UK, the US, and the UAE. It explores various conceptions of minoritised staff, uncovers both overt and covert racial prejudices they face, and examines how these experiences affect their opportunities and willingness to lead. The findings will reveal both institutional and personal motivators and inhibitors of career advancement and contribute to equity, inclusion, and a democratic culture in the higher education sector.
Process
Year 1 Plan (July 2024 through June 2025)
- Confirm project membership and project-specific subgroups.
- Create a website for project updates and information dissemination.
- Launch quarterly research webinars and newsletters for all interested parties.
- Establish an organizing committee to lead a conference at the Birmingham campus in Dubai in November 2025.
- Organize bi-monthly meetings to explore external funding opportunities and co-create educational and research resources, capacity building, and impactful work with global south partners.
- Engage in bilateral visits to strengthen research collaboration, collect data, deliver lectures and workshops, and produce joint publications.
Year 2 Plan (July 2025 through June 2026)
- Deliver quarterly research webinars and newsletters for all interested parties.
- Organize bi-monthly meetings to explore external funding opportunities and co-create educational and research resources, capacity building, and impactful work with global south partners.
- Engage in bilateral visits to strengthen research collaboration, collect data, deliver lectures and workshops, and produce joint publications.
- Present key research findings and network with collaborators at the conference at the Birmingham campus in Dubai in November 2025.
Projected Outcomes
- Within the first two years, we will establish a network of experts consisting of Birmingham, Illinois, and Global South academics, policymakers, policy implementers, practitioners, and stakeholders.
- Within the first three years, we will generate a minimum of 2-3 research publications as a result of the Signature Initiative.
- Within the first three years, we will prepare and submit a minimum of 2-3 external funding bids as a result of the Signature Initiative.
- The project group will actively disseminate information and showcase the achievements through university social media platforms, newspapers, magazines, and media interviews/podcasts.
- Through this collaboration, our aim is to facilitate increased tri-party staff and postgraduate research (PGR) student mobility.
Upcoming Webinars
More information coming soon!
Past Webinars
Webinar 3: Mutual-Learning and Knowledge Co-Creation with the Global South
- Date: October 21, 2025
- Location: Microsoft Teams
- Chaired by Dr. Meng Tian with Dr. Nia Mitchell and Dr. Paul Richardson
Webinar 3 Presenters and Abstracts
Dr. Nia Mitchell is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she teaches qualitative inquiry and program evaluation. She earned her Ph.D. in Qualitative Research and Evaluation Methodologies from the University of Georgia, an M.P.H. from Morehouse School of Medicine, a B.A. in Anthropology from Georgia State University, and a graduate certificate in Program Evaluation from the University of Connecticut. A qualitative and mixed-methods methodologist, Dr. Mitchell’s work is grounded in culturally responsive and critical methodologies and focuses on advancing equity, justice, and human rights through research and evaluation.
Over the past decade, she has implemented and evaluated public health, education, leadership development and civic engagement programs across communities in academic, government, and nonprofit settings. She previously served as Vice President at Reproductive Health Impact, leading its Research and Policy Center, and continues to collaborate with the Black Mamas Matter Alliance as Senior Advisor for Research and Evaluation.
Presentation
In Sisterhood and Solidarity: Advancing Global Reproductive Health in Africa and the African Diaspora
This presentation highlights my participation in the 2024 SEED Exchange: Reproductive and Maternal Health in Accra, a global initiative by REPRA Health that convenes change-makers for cultural immersion and symbiotic learning to advance health equity in Africa and the African diaspora. This experience led to my collaboration with SisterSong on their Global Black (In)Fertility Agenda. We conducted a cross-cultural landscape analysis exploring infertility in Ghana and the U.S., which aims to inform future research, policy, and programming that center Black communities disproportionately affected by infertility. Now as an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, I am partnering with the University of Ghana to design a pilot study on the intersection of reproductive health, environmental health, and technology in both countries. Building upon a long legacy of Black women in the United States who have worked transnationally in solidarity with women in Africa and the African Diaspora, I situate my own engagement in Ghana as part of this ongoing tradition. I also explore how such exchanges foster mutual learning, innovation, and cross-diasporan partnerships.
Dr. Paul Richardson is Assistant Professor on the Teachers in Educational Equity (Malaysia) programme at University of Birmingham. He is the program lead for the PGCEi International Education (Malaysia) course and the MA in Inclusion, Equity and Transformation (Malaysia) course. Previously, he was Senior Lecturer and co-lead for the Primary English team on the PGCE Primary and Early Years course at Bath Spa University. His previous responsibilities have included leading the primary English component on the Teach First and the Troops to Teachers programs.
His research interests include play-based learning in higher education, co-construction in higher education, and rural education. He currently leads a small international collaborative research project which includes colleagues from Bath Spa University, Nottingham Trent University, and Curtin University in Australia looking at the impact of prescriptive planning on teacher’s professionalism.
Presentation
Building with, not for: a co-constructive teacher development program for teacher’s working with displaced communities in Malaysia
YTL Foundation and the University of Birmingham have co-developed a teacher development program that seeks to be to culturally and contextually responsive our students who work as teachers in alternative learning centers (ALCs) in Malaysia. On this journey, we have reflected on and attempted to decolonize the program’s curricula, pedagogies, and practices, especially as a Global North institution, to better meet the needs of our students located in the Global South (Santos, 2014). We aim to create a co-constructive program that incorporates the unique and valuable perspectives of our students in the design of our program curricula to ensure it better relates to their lived experiences (Giroux, 2012) and establishes a responsive and authentic program that champions inclusive education in ALCs located in Malaysia.
Webinar 2: Researching with Responsibility: Education Access and Innovation in the Global South
- Date: August 28, 2025
- Location: Zoom
- Chaired by Jessica Li with Dr. Linda Herrera, Dr. Helen Neville, and Dr. Sarah Benson
Webinar 2 Presenters and Abstracts
Dr. Linda Herrera, professor in the department of Education Policy, Organization and Leadership and leader of the Global Studies in Education program, is a social anthropologist with regional expertise in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Her longstanding interests are in education and power, youth, generations and civic engagement, childhood in global context, and the social effects of technological change. She has authored eight books (as single author, editor, and co-editor) and has worked as a director of social science research initiatives in the MENA region and as an international education policy advisor.
Presentation: Education 2.0: Reflections on Researching, Documenting, and Sharing Resources of a National Reform in Egypt
Dr. Helen A. Neville is the Chair of the Department of Educational Psychology, a professor of Educational Psychology and African American Studies, and a Center for Advanced Studies Professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is past president of the Society of Counseling Psychology (APA Division 17) and the Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity and Race (APA Division 45) and a fellow of the American Psychological Association. She is active in the Association of Black Psychologists, having served on their Board of Directors and receiving their Distinguished Psychologist award. Her research on race, racism, African American psychology, and radical healing has been published in a wide range of journal articles and she has co-edited 8 books in this area.
Presentation: Decolonizing Research Partnerships: A Case Study of Youth Civic Engagement in Tanzania
Dr. Sarah Benson is an Associate Professor in inclusion and disabilities in the Department of Disability, Inclusion and Special Needs. She is the programme lead for the Inclusion and Special Education Needs PGCert and Masters’ in the UK and Dubai. Dr. Benson has published articles and book chapters on inclusive policy in the Middle East. Her interests lie in not only inclusive policy, but new teacher development and creating opportunities for students with disabilities. She has also spent time writing and researching inclusive science curriculum for primary grade students. Her current research interests lay in the Middle East and Gulf where she is inspired to see the rapid growth opportunities for more inclusive communities.
Presentation: Boundless Community: A Developing Disability Arts Movement
Webinar 1: Education Access and Equity with the Global South
- Date: June 19, 2025
- Location: Zoom
- Chaired by Meng Tian with Thandi Lewin, Philip Anderson, and Hayden Noel
Webinar access passcode: *Pq#GB7F
Webinar 1 Presenters and Abstracts
Thandi Lewin is an Associate Professor in the Ali Mazrui Centre for Higher Education Studies in the Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg. Prior to joining UJ, she worked in the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET) as the Chief Director for Institutional Governance and Management Support in the University Education branch. She worked in a number of roles within the national government departments for education. She has extensive experience in higher education policy and equity in education.
Presentation
Transformations and continuities: (in)equity in higher education in South Africa in 2025
In the 30 years since South Africa’s freedom, the public higher education system has developed from a fragmented system to a unified policy and funding regime suitable for a new democracy. This has included addressing student, staff and institutional inequalities. South African institutions simultaneously faced global pressures impacting higher education. The webinar will provide an overview of the major trends in the transformation of higher education in South Africa from the mid-1990s to 2025, focusing on areas of substantive change and persistent inequalities facing the system. In particular, the talk will reflect on access to higher education in the context of a highly unequal society.
Philip Anderson is an Assistant Professor at the University of Birmingham Dubai in the School of Education. A former secondary school teacher and head of department, Philip has a rich background in creativity and the arts, and brings a blend of practical academic insight to the field of education. His main research interest is music in education, reflected in his current PhD research at the University of Durham. Philip also runs the Action Research Network in the UAE, a community of teachers transforming the classroom experience through intentional systematic inquiry. Philip is an active member of the research committee at the University of Birmingham Dubai and is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
Presentation
The Action Research Network: A Collaborative Initiative Driving School Improvement in the UAE – Implications for Policy and Practice
This presentation examines the Action Research Network (ARN), a teacher-led initiative launched by the University of Birmingham Dubai in 2022 to drive educational improvement across the UAE. Through a systematic review of 2024 conference presentations, seven key themes reflect regional education priorities: Arabic and Emirati learner interventions, emotionally intelligent leadership approaches, technology integration, information literacy, English language learner support, student wellbeing, and professional development. Empowering educators to conduct classroom-based research creates sustainable school improvement that drives individual practice enhancement and systemic educational change across the UAE.
Dr. Hayden Noel, Clinical Associate Professor at Gies College of Business, researches consumer behavior and information processing. His recent work explores AI acceptance in education, focusing on fairness, trust, and transparency in AI-assisted grading. His findings offer insight into the ethical and effective integration of AI in academic assessment.
Presentation
Beyond the Algorithm: Exploring Student Acceptance of AI Grading Through an Adapted TAM Framework
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly utilized in education, including grading through large language models (LLMs). This study presents findings from an experiment in a business course comparing traditional grading with AI-assisted grading. Students who received AI-generated feedback with human oversight reported greater perceptions of fairness, transparency, and trust. However, concerns about overreliance and its effects on learning have arisen. To interpret these responses, we propose the Technology Acceptance Model for AI Grading (TAM-AIG), which incorporates fairness, transparency, and trust. Results emphasize key factors influencing student acceptance and provide insights for the ethical integration of AI in academic assessment.