Mr Malcolm Richards

Position:

Senior Lecturer in Education

Department:

ACE - Education and Childhood

Telephone:

+441173282332

Email:

Malcolm.Richards@uwe.ac.uk

Social media:

About me

I am a Black British teacher-researcher. I am a cis-heterosexual male, 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 am RastafarI. I am a graduate of the Black Supplementary School Movement (Josina Machel and Dimbaleh, London). I have also been formally educated at every level of the English schooling system (from EYFS to PhD). I am a qualified teacher and have previously held senior leadership roles within local authority schools, including serving on school governance committees across England. I have extensive experience in developing initial teacher education and training, as well as in teacher training and development, across various settings, including schools, youth and community education, and the lifelong learning sector. Since 2022, I have worked at UWE Bristol in the School of Education and Childhood as a Senior Lecturer in Education. 

In addition, I am co-owner of Bookbag, an independent bookshop in Exeter (Devon, UK), and founder-editor of Culture Yard Press, an independent publisher of stories and storytelling from the Caribbean diaspora across Europe.

Area of expertise

I am the co-lead for the Equity in Education research strand for the Education and Childhood Research Group. I am the module lead for UTLH3L-30-M Introduction to Race, Social Justice, and Sustainability (MA Education). I am also a member of the research ethics board for UWE Bristol College of Health, Science and Society. I am the founder and director of Network for Black Studies in Education across Britain (NBSE), a research project based at UWE Bristol, which aims to provide interdisciplinary research, study, and learning, and to understand the impacts of Black intellectual traditions in contemporary education. I currently teach on programmes across SEAC's  Primary Education (undergraduate), Primary PGCE, MA in Education (distance learning) and Doctor of Education EdD (postgraduate). I also supervise several MA in Education dissertations and am part of EdD supervision teams for two EdD students (2026-27).

In 2026-27, I am leading a research project that explores how Richards and Whitehead's (2026) concept of Funds of Anti-Racist Education can inform transformative developments for teacher education in England and Wales. I am also collaborating on a number of projects with colleagues examining the legacy and impact of the Black Supplementary School Movement across the United Kingdom, and possibilities for teachers, teaching, and teacher education in the 21st century.

For my scholarly activity, I have been awarded several awards, including Churchill Fellowship (2014), Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain Teacher Scholar (2019), University of Exeter Education Incubator (2020, 2021), and UWE Bristol Arts and Humanities Research Council Impact Acceleration Rapid Response Grant  (2024). 

Funded Projects

AHRC x Bath Spa StoryArcs Fellow (£9k, PI, 2025–26): Pedagogical Brilliance: Stories with black educators and teaching in schools across Britain – collecting stories and promoting storytelling with black educators, developing, archiving and publishing compelling publications of practice.

SSHRC Partnership Development Goals (University of Windsor, Canada) ($198k CAD), Co-I, 2025–28): Enhancing Teacher Candidates' Research Capacity and Social-Emotional Competencies: A Canada--Botswana Collaboration on Student Mobility, Engagement, and Writing for Scholarship

I welcome enquiries from anyone interested in research on teacher education and schooling in rural communities, Funds of Identity theory, Critical Race Theory, Critical Pedagogy, Anti Racist Education, perspectives with Black British and Global Majority participants across education, multi-level comparative analysis in teaching and learning, and using of critical, creative, and reflective methodologies to deepen understanding of educational experiences. 

Publications

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