Mr Malcolm Richards

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About me

I am a Black [British] cis-heterosexual male. I was born in Hackney to Caribbean (Guyana and St Lucia) parents of African descent. I am the eldest of three children. I am an English and [English] Caribbean patois speaker. I live in Devon with my wife and two children. I am RastafarI.

I have been formally educated at every level of the United Kingdom schooling system (from EYFS to PhD). I am also a graduate of the African Caribbean supplementary school movement (Josina Machel and Dimbaleh). I am a qualified teacher, former senior leader, and school's governor, and previously worked in schools across London, Buckinghamshire, Devon (UK).

I worked as a local authority advisor, and developed digital and in-person teaching, and teacher professional development initiatives to colleges, local authorities, higher education institutions, and with student, teacher, community-led groups.

In 2022 I joined UWE as a Senior Lecturer in Education. I am the co-lead for the Equity in Education research strand for the Education and Childhood Research Group. I am also module lead for Policy and Contemporary Issues (postgraduate). As well as facilitating teaching and learning for students across undergraduate and postgraduate modules, I am dissertation supervisor for several PGCE and MA students.

Area of expertise

My ongoing research interests include equity in education, funds of identity and teacher education and teaching development, Black Studies in Education, dialogue and dialogic education, critical race methodologies, anti-racist pedagogies, transformative digital education, and professional teaching cultures in education.

My doctoral thesis (University of Exeter, 2019-2023) is a qualitative research study, which uses multimodal action research to examine how teachers relate their funds of identity with Black [British] cultures in processes of resource mediation for anti-racist teaching and learning across schools in the Southwest of England. 

I am also involved in several individual, UWE-led and collaborative education projects which relate to my research interests. 

These include:

  • UWE Race and Education: Building a digital cross-disciplinary community of practice around themes of Race and Education, which supports teacher and community-led research, alongside students and staff at UWE, supported by BRIDGE (Bristol Interdisciplinary Group for Education Research, UWE)
  • The Respect Project (Racialized Experiences Project: School, Education & Trust), a collaborative research project on children, racism, and mental health in Bristol, led by Verity Jones (UWE)
  • A living history of teaching with Black teachers in English schools, a collaborative project with Camille London-Miyo, Stephen Lawrence Research Centre, De Montfort University Leicester.

Since 2020, I have made multiple public contributions in my work. I have co-edited a book (Beyond the Blockade: education in Cuba, Manifesto: 2020), contributed to five publications, three co-written inquires, and presented papers at eight peer reviewed conferences (national and international). I am on the editorial board of one journal (Dialogic Journal International) and have been invited as discussant onto several award-winning educational podcasts, including Surviving Society (E140), and Disrupting the Discourse (#6).

 I have also been involved in co-developing successful digital online learning initiatives, such as undergraduate modules (University of Exeter, Introduction to Black British Studies, 2022-23), mentoring and coaching courses (University of Exeter, Cultural Community Mentoring Project, 2020-21) and cross-disciplinary communities of practice (University of Exeter, Exeter Decolonizing Network, 2020-present).

I welcome enquiries from anyone interested in collaborative research opportunities into Funds of Identity, Black Studies in Education, Critical Race Theory, with a focus upon racial minority and minoritized teachers in schools across Western-European countries.

Publications

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