Dr. Malgosia Machowska-Kosciak

Malgosia Machowska-Kosciak (PhD) is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in Intercultural and Global Citizenship Education and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education, The School of STEM Education, Innovation and Global Studies at DCU. She holds M. Phil and PhD in Sociolinguistics from Trinity College Dublin. She has been a successful lead researcher and coordinator of three projects, SPIEPS, SGMEYP and INOVATE funded by Dep. of Justice, Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission andDepartment of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. These projects make a significant contribution to positive integration and representation of children and young people with ethnic minority backgrounds (including second-generation migrants) within the Irish society/education system, highlighting the importance of implementation of global citizenship education and anti-racism education along with the incorporation of authentic narratives on migration into the mainstream curriculum and within ITE programmes. Malgosia’s work aims to extend Laura Lundy’s (2007) model of democratic participation and provide underrepresented ethnic minority young people with affordances to express their own views (Space), facilitate expression of their views (Voice), their voices to be listened to (Audience) and have their views acted upon (Influence), through respecting and enhancing rights of the young people in an innovative and creative way.

Before she has started work for CHRCE, Malgosia has been affiliated with the Sociology Department in TCD and the Marino Institute of Education where she thought about issues connected to Migration and Education worldwide. She has been working with young migrants, refugees and asylum seekers through LMETB ( Louth and Meath Education and Training Board) for 10 years. She has been involved in European projects on multilingualism and multiculturalism such as “New speakers in Multilingual Europe” and ‘MultiLingNet’ where she is a Scientific Committee Member. She is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Multilingual Theories and Practices, Equinox Publishing. She is also a member of ‘Belong to’. She authors and runs interculturaleducation.ie website featuring a range of good teaching practices and resources for teachers working with diverse student populations and contributes to various research projects across the Institute of Education, in DCU.

She is an author of a sole monograph entitled ‘The Multilingual Adolescent Experience: Young Poles growing up in an English-speaking school’- “Small stories” of integration' being published by prestigious international publisher ‘Multilingual Matters’, Bristol, UK. This book highlights a need for greater recognition of multilingual students’ abilities, including their linguistic capabilities and acknowledgement of multiliteracy and multilingualism in Irish Schools. It also challenges the ‘deficit’ view of a ‘migrant student’ and proposes a more holistic, richer and fuller perspective on their lives. She also co-authors two important research reports: ‘A report on issues facing second-generation ethnic minority young people in Ireland: collaboration between Centre for Human Rights and Citizenship Education and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commissionand TEACH-RSE Research Report: Teacher Professional Development and Relationships and Sexuality Education (IRC Coalesce Award 2019/147).

Malgosia’s cross-disciplinary research interests include global citizenship education, relationships and sexuality education, children’s and young people’s activism and democratic participation, critical approaches to multiculturalism and finding ways in which we can tackle social injustice, and inequalities through education. She is also interested in the development of digitally informed ‘self-learning environments’, inquiry and task-based learning approaches in education.