Can education heal? Staff and students exploring reparative pedagogies in the context of institutional harms in higher education

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1337

Keywords:

ableism, culturally sensitive teaching, eugenics, pedagogy, pedagogy of care, reparative pedagogy

Abstract

In 2021, University College London (UCL) published its report following a eugenics inquiry three years before (UCL, 2021). What was interesting about this report was the inclusion of education-related recommendations, signalling a recognition that reckoning with legacies of harm meant going beyond apology towards intentionally confronting the educational implications of post-inquiry work. Reckoning with historic and contemporary harms in educational contexts is under-theorised in learning development literature. Situating our analysis within what ​Zembylas (2015)​ and others have called the ‘affective turn’, we follow ​Sriprakash’s (2023)​ theorising of the reparative functions of education exploring the ways that reparative pedagogies can be harnessed, particularly by those higher education institutions that have acknowledged histories and legacies of harm.

We critically reflect on the 'doing' of learning development work across the university to explore the ways that teaching activities can incorporate reparative pedagogies. Drawing on three illustrative examples, we explain the development of activities designed to be integrated into existing curriculum content, and report on staff and student engagement with these activities. Utilising reflexive thematic analysis ​​(Braun and Clarke, 2023)​​ with data generated from semi-structured interviews with students, reflective interviews with staff, observation of teaching, and our own reflective field notes, we reflect on the extent to which our activities promoted awareness of eugenics at the university, developed student engagement with institutional histories of harm, and highlighted the ongoing tensions and dilemmas of this legacy for a ‘future focused’ (UCL, 2021) curriculum and student experience.   

Author Biographies

Havva Görkem Altunbas, University College London

Havva Görkem Altunbas is a PhD candidate in UCL’s Department of Curriculum, Pedagogy, and Assessment (Institute of Education [IoE]), alongside working as a doctoral researcher for ELEP. Her research focuses on immigrant Turkish students' attitudes toward science from a cultural perspective, exploring how sociocultural backgrounds influence their science aspirations. Currently, she is working as a research associate at the Centre for Industry Education Collaboration (CIEC) at the University of York, where she designs and implements data collection tools, analyses data, and reports findings to support the research-led assessment of industry collaboration programmes.

Xiaoyan Guo, University College London

Xiaoyan Guo is a PhD candidate in UCL’s Department of Culture, Communication and Media (IoE), alongside working as a doctoral researcher for ELEP. Her research focuses on the use of a multimodal learning analytics approach to understand, measure, and optimise professional learning with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and automate feedback for learners to enhance knowledge application to practice. She is currently working as a research assistant at the Faculty of Brain Sciences at UCL.

Yuncong Liu, University College London

Yuncong Liu is a PhD candidate in UCL’s Department of Education, Practice and Society (IoE), alongside working as a doctoral researcher for ELEP. Her research centres on investigating the impact of the medium of instruction (MOI) on student opportunities to learn in Tanzanian secondary schools. Her research particularly highlights the severe constraints on teaching quality when English serves as the main MOI, and it sheds light on the long-lasting implications for social justice and education equity in the Tanzanian context. She is currently working as a Patient Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) officer at UCL’s Department of Primary Care and Population Health.

Helen Knowler, University College London

Helen Knowler is an associate professor and the academic lead for UCL’s Eugenics Legacy Education Project (ELEP), the educational response to UCL’s Eugenics Inquiry. She is a qualified teacher and experienced tutor at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She worked at the Universities of Bristol and Exeter before joining UCL in September 2022. Her expertise is in inclusive education; she has published widely on exclusionary practices in a range of education contexts. She specialises in developing inclusive approaches to teaching and learning related to controversial or problematic issues.

Tor Wright, University College London

Tor Wright is the project manager for the Eugenics Legacy Education Project (ELEP) at UCL. She has worked across secondary and higher education in a variety of student-facing and professional service roles.

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Published

27-03-2025

How to Cite

Altunbas, H. G., Guo, X., Liu, Y., Knowler, H., & Wright, T. (2025). Can education heal? Staff and students exploring reparative pedagogies in the context of institutional harms in higher education. Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, (35). https://doi.org/10.47408/jldhe.vi35.1337

Issue

No. 35 (2025): Special Edition, Liberating Learning

Section

Caring and compassionate pedagogies

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