I am the Course Director for the MSc Comparative and International Education programme and a Junior Research Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall. Guided by the principle of epistemic justice, my research critically examines whose knowledge is valued, whose voices are marginalised or silenced, and how educational systems can be reimagined to centre and legitimise the perspectives of historically excluded communities.
I focus on how young people, mothers, and educators in contexts of crisis, displacement, and structural inequality experience, interpret, and shape education. Through this lens, I investigate how intersecting forms of marginalisation, such as gender, class, ethnicity, migration, and displacement, inform educational aspirations, exclusions, and agency.
My work spans post-crisis education in Pakistan, educational recovery following COVID-19, and the experiences of displaced and racialised communities in both South Asia and the UK. I collaborate closely with families, teacher-educators, and community members to co-produce knowledge that disrupts dominant narratives and builds more inclusive and responsive educational practices.
Alongside my academic research, I work through collaborative research projects to actively inform and influence education policy, with a focus on better serving vulnerable and underrepresented groups. I am committed to bridging the gap between scholarship and practice, ensuring that educational policy is shaped by the lived experiences and knowledge of those most often marginalised. In 2023, I served as Deputy Chair of the United Kingdom Forum for International Education and Training (UKFIET), contributing to national and international dialogues on equity in education. Through both research and practice, I aim to shape ethical and contextually grounded approaches to Comparative and International Education, fostering sustained engagement with questions of epistemic justice, inclusion, and representation.
I welcome DPhil students with interests in:
- Epistemic justice and marginalised knowledge systems
- Intersectional and community-based perspectives on education
- Educational responses to displacement and crisis
- Gender, particularly girls’ and mothers’ educational aspirations
- Gender and education
- Participatory and qualitative research methodologies
- The capability approach and social justice
- Policy engagement for educational equity
- South Asia, particularly Pakistan
Research Group Membership
- Comparative and International Research Group
- South Asian Approaches to Researching Education Network
- Cambridge Network for Disability and Education Research (CaNDER)
- Race Empire and Education (REE) collective
- Research Equitable Access and Learning Centre (REAL)
- Mahbub ul Haq Research Center
Research Projects
1. Developing a Socially Sensitive Research Approach to Higher Education Aspirations: Exploring the Hopes and Aspirations of British Sixth Form Students of Pakistani and Bangladeshi Heritage
Team members: Aliya Khalid, Joonghyun Kwak, Stephanie Nowack
Funder: John Fell Fund
Status: Ongoing
2. Teacher and community perspectives: missing links in language planning and policy in multilingual settings
Team members: Aliya Khalid, Fauzia Shamim, Hafiz Inamullah
Funder: DARE-RC, FCDO
Status: Ongoing
3. From Policy to Practice: Understanding Teachers’ Experiences with Student Learning Outcomes-Based Education
Team members: Aliya Khalid, Nasir Jalil, Hafiz Inamullah
Funder: DARE-RC, FCDO
Status: Ongoing
4. ‘Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on learning experiences of secondary school going age children among Bangladeshi and Pakistani ethnic minority families’
Funder: Cambridge Humanities Research Grants Scheme
Research team: Professor Nidhi Singal and Dr Aliya Khalid
Status: Complete
5. Gendered Inequalities in Education and Capability Spaces for Women/Girls (and others) in Pakistan: Education and reconstruction after 2022 floods in Pakistan
Funder: British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) Seedcorn Fund
Research team: Aliya Khalid, Soufia Siddiqui, Aditi Chidambaram, Indrani Sigamany
Status: Complete
6. Bridging the Local and Global: Women’s Spaces and Collectives’: On becoming caregivers and teachers: Immigrant mothers’ identities and philosophies of education in England during COVID
Team members: Aliya Khalid, Jane Rooney and Ruth Houghton, Lavinia Kamphausen, Kate spencer-Bennet, Alana Farrel
Funder: The British Academy
Status: Complete
7. Collaborative development of faculty for Pakistan undergraduate Teacher Education Colleges: Durbeen and Oxford knowledge exchange project
Team members: Aliya Khalid, Ann Childs, Trevor Mutton, Ian Thompson, Jenni Ingram and Katharine Burn
Funder: Malala Fund
Status: Complete
