Professor David Clough from the Department of Divinity is one of three Co-Convenors of a new research project based at the University of Aberdeen that aims to provide an institutional platform for monitoring and challenging ways in which the disciplines of Religious Studies and Theology in UK Higher Education operate to exclude and disadvantage UK Minority Ethnic, Global Majority Heritage, and Working Class students and staff (recognising the overlap between each of these groups).
Professor Clough will lead the project alongside Dr Dulcie McKenzie of Queen’s Foundation, Birmingham and Dr Caroline Starkey, of the University of Leeds. The project’s Advisory Board includes representatives of all the major UK subject associations in theology and religious studies, and leading researchers with expertise in relation to religion, race, and class, including Divinity’s Professor John Swinton. Dr Sam Newington is also participating as part of the Project Team.
Core funding for the project has been awarded by the Susanna Wesley Foundation. The project’s initial term will run for five years. It will review available quantitative data on applications, admission, progression, and achievement of students and staff, convene focus groups to identify key issues, conduct a large qualitative survey of staff and students, publish a report, and then hold workshops in universities and subject associations to discuss the project findings and recommendations in dialogue with existing research as it applies to particular contexts.
To find out more about opportunities to be involved with the project, contact David Clough (david.clough@abdn.ac.uk).