Professor Vini Lander, Director Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality

Professor Vini Lander

Director Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality

Vini Lander is Professor of Race and Education and Director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality in the Carnegie School of Education.

Vini’s research focuses on race, ethnicity and education. She uses critical race theory as a theoretical framework to examine ‘race’ inequalities in education, specifically in teacher education. The persistence of educational inequality from early years to higher education has spurred Vini to educate teachers to think beyond the status quo, which may perpetuate these inequalities. Teachers make a valuable contribution and deserve better preparation to teach in a racially diverse society. This has led to her inspirational teaching and in 2014 Professor Lander was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by the Higher Education Academy (Advance HE). Vini challenges students to think differently, supporting them to find ways to act to make a difference in their schools and classrooms.

Professor Lander's research publications focus primarily on race and teacher education examining not only teachers' attitudes to race but also the lived experiences of teacher educators of colour in the UK and Australia. She has been commissioned by schools undertake research on the rise of racism and the Race Equality Foundation to undertake a literature review related to the impact of Covid on the educational progress of racially minoritised students.

Current Teaching

  • MA Race, Education and Decolonial Thought
  • PGCE Primary and Secondary
  • PhD supervision

Research Interests

Vini has led research on the policy to promote fundamental British values in English schools and initial teacher education. Her work on the impact of the mandate to promote fundamental British values in schools extends her work in the field of race and education. She worked with a number of schools in the North West to investigate young people’s conceptions of Britishness and their sense of belonging through the use of participatory research methods.

This research aimed to impact on education policy and the teaching of fundamental British values in schools in order to engender a sense of belonging for all children.

As Director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality (CRED), which is a research and practice centre, Professor Lander has delivered professional development for over 100 institutions including schools Multi-Academy Trusts, the NHS, medical educators, EHRC and many others. She has provided consultancy for prestigious organisations supporting their ambitions and plans to become anti-racist establishments. Recently, in collaboration with Professor Heather Smith, at Newcastle University she completed research on the provision of anti-racist pedagogy in initial teacher education and training (ITE/T) which led to the writing of the anti-racism framework for ITE/T.

Professor Lander is the lead for the Universities Council for the Education of Teachers sub-group on Equalities. She is also a member of the Leeds Learning Alliance Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. Professor Lander is a member of the British Educational Research Association (BERA) and is a member of the BERA College of Reviewers.

Professor Vini Lander, Director Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality

Ask Me About

  1. Inequalities in education
  2. British Values in school
  3. Diversity
  4. Equality and inclusion
  5. Race
  6. Racism
  7. Teacher training

Selected Outputs

  • Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship2014
  • Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy2014
  • Awarded the BERA Meeting of Minds Award2011
  • Member of the British Educational Research Association
  • ‘We can’t be not racist, we have to be anti-racist’ - New podcast exploring racism hopes to inspire positive change

    Yorkshire Post - online

    “The podcasts have been designed to educate and inform people about racism and the lived experiences of racism in their everyday lives,” explains Professor Lander, director of the Centre for Race Education and Decoloniality in the university’s Carnegie School of Education.

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  • Does he like me because I’m fun smart or simply because I’m not white?

    Grazia Magazine - print

    Professor Vini Lander, director of the Centre for Race, Education and Decoloniality at Leeds Beckett University, believes it’s easy for individuals to couch their racism in terms such as ‘personal preference’. ‘They appear to sound reasonable while still inflicting psychological and emotional trauma on a woman of colour,’ she says. ‘In other words, it is an act of racism.’

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  • Predicted Grades and BAME Students

    BBC Look North - tv

    An interview concerning predicted grades and BAME students.

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  • Exclusive: 'Teachers’ racist attitudes stuck in 1980s'

    TES News - online

    Professor of race and education Vini Lander from Leeds Beckett University claims teachers are not being prepared well enough to deal with a rise in racist incidents and hate crime in schools since the EU referendum.

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  • Thomas L; Duckworth V; Lander V; Allen D; Rodríguez Cuadrado S; Heaslip V; Board M (In press) 'Uncovering Students’ Powerful Persistent Passion: Implications for Policy and Practice in Widening Access and Success in Healthcare Education'. Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning

  • Smith H; Lander V (2022) Finding ‘pockets of possibility’ for anti‐racism in a curriculum for student teachers: From absence to action. Curriculum Journal

    https://doi.org/10.1002/curj.177

  • Nicholson L; Lander V (2020) The Control Beliefs of Teacher Educators regarding their Research Engagement. Educational Review

    https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2020.1816908

  • Farrell F; Lander V (2019) “We’re not British values teachers are we?”: Muslim teachers’ subjectivity and the governmentality of unease. Educational Review, 71 (4), pp. 466-482.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2018.1438369

  • Lander V; Santoro N (2017) Invisible and hypervisible academics: the experiences of Black and minority ethnic teacher educators. Teaching in Higher Education, 22 (8), pp. 1008-1021.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2017.1332029

  • Elton-Chalcraft S; Lander V; Revell L; Warner D; Whitworth L (2017) To promote, or not to promote Fundamental British values? Teachers' Standards, diversity and teacher education. British Educational Research Journal, 43 (1), pp. 29-48.

    https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3253

  • Gilroy P (2016) Editorial. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42 (3), pp. 273-273.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2016.1184458

  • Lander V (2016) Introduction to fundamental British values. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42 (3), pp. 274-279.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2016.1184459

  • Lander V; Elton-Chalcraft S; Revell L (2016) Journal of Education for Teaching: International research and pedagogy. Special Issue: Fundamental British Values. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42 (3), pp. 273-368.

  • Willis G; Lander V (2015) Why Do The Mirrors Lie?. Race Equality Teaching, 33 (2), pp. 33-42.

    https://doi.org/10.18546/RET.33.2.08

  • Lander V (2015) 'Racism it's part of my everyday life': Black and minority ethnic pupils' experiences in a predominantly white school. Runnymede School Report, pp. 32-35.

  • Lander V (2013) Race Ethnicity and Education Special Issue: Initial Teacher Education: Developments, Dilemmas and Challenges. RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION, 17 (3), pp. 299-470.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2013.832917

  • Smith H; Lander V (2012) Collision or Collusion: effects of teacher ethnicity in the teaching of whiteness. RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION, 15 (3), pp. 331-351.

    https://doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2011.585340

  • Lander V (2011) 'Race', culture and all that: An exploration of the perspectives of White secondary student teachers about race equality issues in their initial teacher education (ITE)?. RACE ETHNICITY AND EDUCATION, 14 (3), pp. 351-364.

  • Speck D (In press) Exclusive: 'Teachers’ racist attitudes stuck in 1980s' [Times Educational Supplement].

  • Farrell F; Lander V; Shaw S (2020) Britishness, Identity and Belonging [Online].

  • Lander V (2021) Hopeful or Hopeless? Teacher Education in Turbulent Times. In: Heidrich L; Mecheril P; Karakaşoğlu Y; Shure S ed. Regimes of Belonging, Schools and Migrations: Teaching in (Trans)National Constellations. Springer, pp. 419-435.

  • Lander V; Fairchild N (2021) Seeing beyond: Perspectives of Black children in English ECEC. In: Sage Handbook of Global Childhoods. Sage,

  • Lander V; Nicholson LJ (2020) Cinderella Academics: Teacher Educators in the Academy. In: Woolhouse C; Nicholson LJ ed. Mentoring in Higher Education: Case Studies of Peer Learning and Pedagogical Development.. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 235-253.

  • Goenechea C; Flores G; Lander V (2019) ¿Están Preparados los futuros docentes de educación primaria para trabajar en contextos multiculturales?. In: El valor de la educación en una sociedad culturalmente diversa. Universidad de Almería,

  • Lander V (2018) Introduction to Fundamental British Values. In: Lander V ed. Fundamental British Values. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 1-6.

  • Lander V; Zaheerali AS (2016) One Step Forward, Two Steps Back: The Continuing Saga of Black and Minority Ethnic Teacher Recruitment and Retention in England. In: Diversifying the Teaching Force in Transnational Contexts: Critical Perspectives. Sense Publishers, pp. 29-42.

  • Lander V (2014) Initial Teacher Education: The Practice of Whiteness. In: Race R; Lander V ed. Advancing Race and Ethnicity in Education. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 93-110.