Prof. Karl Kitching

Karl's research and teaching focuses on challenging multiple inequalities in education, in childhood, and in young people’s lives. Karl has published a range of internationally peer-reviewed articles on young people’s experiences of racism in school, race theory in education, the sexualisation of childhood, children’s religious identities at school, teacher motivation, and critical theory and pedagogy. He has also published two key books on the politics of racism and on religion in education, childhood and youth. The first, The Politics of Compulsive Education: Racism and Learner-Citizenship explores how racism, education and resistance have been entangled in Ireland from the colonial to the global age, and offers new ways of thinking about anti-racism in education as a form of learner-citizenship. The second book, Childhood, Religion and School Injustice examines how children and parents negotiate secular-religious relations and inequalities across school contexts. You can also listen to a New Books Network podcast discussing this book.

Karl recently completed the Leverhulme Trust (2022-2025) study 'Free' Expression at School? The Making of Youth Engagements with Race and Faith, in collaboration with Professor Reza Gholami, Dr Aslı Kandemir, and Dr Shajed Rahman. Using national surveys and in-depth case studies, this project mapped the political, geographic, social and cultural conditions that 'make' youth expression on race and faith issues across school and public contexts in England, and particularly in Birmingham and London. Several research reports and journal articles have been published from this study, and the book Race, Faith and Freedom: The Politics of Free Speech in Schools is in press (Cambridge University Press, 2027).