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Black Bodies ‘Out of Place’ in Academic Spaces: Gender, Race, Faith and Culture in Post-race Times

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Dismantling Race in Higher Education

Abstract

This chapter takes a black feminist embodied approach to investigating the intersectionality of gender, race, faith and culture as it manifests itself in our overwhelmingly white places of teaching and learning in post-race times. The research study looks at the accounts of white Post Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE) tutor’s ‘best practice’ when teaching and engaging with black and minority ethnic students. The three ‘best practice’ narratives of the tutors demonstrates the ways in which gender, race, religion, and other social divisions are simultaneously experienced as lived realities on and through the Muslim, black, male and female bodies of Keith, Sam and Kusbah. All three students were constructed as ‘bodies out of place’ in the ‘best practice’ equality narratives of the tutors. In each case the student’s embodied raced and gendered human agency framed their struggle for life chances and determined their academic well-being and progress through the course.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK

    Heidi Safia Mirza

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  1. Heidi Safia Mirza
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Correspondence to Heidi Safia Mirza .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Roehampton, London, UK

    Jason Arday

  2. Goldsmiths College, University of London, London, UK

    Heidi Safia Mirza

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Mirza, H.S. (2018). Black Bodies ‘Out of Place’ in Academic Spaces: Gender, Race, Faith and Culture in Post-race Times. In: Arday, J., Mirza, H. (eds) Dismantling Race in Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60261-5_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60261-5_10

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60260-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60261-5

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