Emily Dobrich was awarded Best Presentation for Alternative Education at the 2024 BERA/WERA Conference for her presentation, An Embodied Educational Research Project to Build Solidarity and Awareness of Reconciliation. Dr. Dobrich presented findings from her doctoral research, which sought to explore and respond to persistent educational inequalities within the Canadian education–migration system.
The research explored how embodied learning strengthened intercultural sharing and solidarity building among migrant women in an alternative educational space. The objective of the project was to develop a strengths-based pedagogical approach for newcomer education that moved away from colonial and deficit logics through embodied learning practices, and to examine the impact of these practices on enhancing immigrant women’s self-determination and situated solidarity building. The study was underpinned by a critical approach to adult education and a relational understanding of place, used to share the histories of Indigenous Peoples often missing from mainstream education.
The insights and implications of this study were of interest to educational researchers and practitioners working in community-based contexts, feminist scholarship, and social justice activism. Ultimately, the project provided a hopeful example of the positive impacts of employing more diverse, engaged, and culturally respectful community-oriented learning opportunities in transnational migration learning contexts.
Re-evaluating the dominant narrative was presented as vital to developing an education system that could support and empower all who participated in it—learners, practitioners, and the wider community. Whilst this had been a priority for UK universities for several years, similar endeavours had remained more limited in compulsory and further education.
The session aimed to spark discussion and foster further research collaborations. It appealed to colleagues working across Europe and to those based in countries whose Indigenous histories had not traditionally been celebrated in the mainstream—both globally and within the British Isles.
Draft Programme:
16:00pm Welcome & Introduction; Fadoua Govaerts, University of Bath;
Sarah Gillie, University of the West of England; Sharon Smith,
University of Chester; Tingting Yuan, University of Nottingham; Charlotte
Marshall, Nottingham Trent University
16:10pm Encouraging Intercultural Sharing and Community Building through
Embodied Learning in an Alternative Education Space; Emily Dobrich, Western University
16:50pm Q&A
17:20pm Closing Remarks; Fadoua Govaerts, University of Bath;
Sarah Gillie, University of the West of England; Sharon Smith,
University of Chester; Tingting Yuan, University of Nottingham; Charlotte
Marshall, Nottingham Trent University
17:30pm Close of Event
Western University
Emily Dobrich is an educational researcher whose interdisciplinary scholarship focuses on embodied learning, diaspora and transnational studies, social justice, and decolonizing methodologies. She earned her Ph.D. in Adult Education and Community...
Senior Lecturer at University of the West of England
Sarah Gillie is a former primary school teacher whose research interests relate to inclusion in education across and beyond ‘compulsory’ schooling. Family diagnoses of neurodivergence have only strengthened her conviction that inclusive...
Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Trent University
Charlotte Marshall is a lecturer at Nottingham Trent University where she has recently achieved senior fellow of the Higher Education Authority. Charlotte is a postgraduate of the University of Northampton where her research focuses on level 8...
Researcher at University of Birmingham
Sharon Smith recently completed her PhD at the School of Education at the University of Birmingham (July 2024). Her research interests relate to inclusion, education, the role of parents of children/young people with SEND, co-production, critical...
Assitant Professor at University of Nottingham
Dr. Tingting Yuan is an Assistant Professor in Education and Teacher Development at the School of Education, University of Nottingham. She holds a PhD in Comparative Education from the University of Bristol and completed her MA and BA studies at...