Fang Xu is a doctoral student in education at University of Oxford. Her research interests are in equity, social class and socioeconomic status gaps in educational outcomes. Her research is motivated by a theoretical interest in the production and reproduction of social inequalities.
She aims to use empirical data and longitudinal datasets to understand how youth developmental outcomes are shaped by families with a particular focus on populations in the Greater China region. She is also interested in the role of individual decision-making mechanisms in shaping educational inequality by social origins and school segregation, comparative studies of education system characteristics, and big data and machine learning in education.
Fang Xu obtained her BA degree in Chinese Language and Literature (Teacher Education) at South China Normal University. During her undergraduate study, she was selected into the Class of Sinology and obtained the qualification certificate for teachers in senior high school Chinese teaching in China. She completed her MA degree in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, University College London in 2019, conducting quantitative research on adolescents’ educational aspirations in China for her dissertation. Prior to her DPhil study, she worked as a research assistant at Shenzhen Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics for Society (AIRS) at The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen.
Szilvi’s main research interest lies in student religiosity. She completed her BA in Theology in Budapest (summa cum laude). After working in a number of ministry and teaching settings, she completed her PGCE in Religious Education at the Department, followed by an MSc in Research Design and Methodology (distinction).
She has been working as a project manager on a large-scale science-religion project at the University of Oxford before starting her DPhil. Szilvi lives in Oxford with her husband and 3 children.
Yibo Wang has an MA in International Marketing from the Coventry University (UK) and a Master’s in Management: Leadership and Organizational Change from the University of Birmingham (UK).
His doctoral research focuses on ‘knowledge hiding’, ‘leadership style’ and ‘Confucian culture’ in Chinese education and training institutions.
As empirical studies on ‘knowledge hiding’ in the Chinese context are scarce, Yibo hopes to uncover underlying mechanism of knowledge hiding and find its potential influence factors.
Prior to coming to Oxford, he worked as a CEO in an educational consultancy based in Beijing that advised the investment and marketing analyses on education and training industry.
Antonin’s research is directed towards global regionalisms in higher education with a specific interest in transnational university alliances. He is currently investigating the pilot phases of the European Universities Initiative, as well as other regional higher education and research networks.
Antonin has just completed an MSc in Comparative and International Education at the department. Prior to joining Oxford, he coordinated international projects at the crossroads of education, culture and social action for various not-for-profit organizations based in France. He also obtained an MA in Film and Philosophy and a BA in Film Studies from King’s College London.
Bernard holds a PhD in Marketing from the University of Nottingham and a DBA from the University of Newcastle.
His research to date explores the leadership in HE. Prior to coming to Oxford, he worked in various HEIs and served as the supervisor of a secondary school.
Publications
Lee, B., Tsui, A. & Yau, O.H.M. (2019), Higher-order Goals, Trust-in-leader, and Self-efficacy as Moderators of Transformational Leadership Performance: The Case of Multi-level Marketing Organizations in China, Journal of Euromarketing, Vol.28 (3-4), 76-97. (2011 RG Impact factor: 0.83).
Conferences
Lee, B. (2020), “Self-formation for the Underprivileged,” 2020 International Online Symposium, Toward a New Paradigm of Economics,organized by Macau Ricci Institute, The University of Saint Joseph, 15 & 16 October. (Online Conference Platform Presentation).
Arzhia Habibi is a DPhil in Education Candidate and uses Mandarin to conduct her research in the Chinese higher education context.
Arzhia’s research focuses on ‘expressions’ of global or world citizenship education in a Chinese higher education institution In the study, she explores the perspectives and practices of educators and students at a China-based university, which experiments with discourses related to citizenship. She further investigates how individual, local, national and global dynamics and the surrounding discourses influence worldviews and practices in a university setting.
As empirical studies on global or world citizenship education in the Chinese context are scarce, Arzhia hopes to contribute to a nascent knowledge base which may extend and add depth to the critical global discourses of global and world citizenship education, beyond Eurocentric framings.
Prior to her studies at Oxford, Arzhia received a first class Bachelor’s degree in Contemporary Chinese Studies at The University of Nottingham, and a Master’s in International Communication in Taiwan at National Chengchi University. As a child, she also attended kindergarten in Fuzhou, Fujian province of China.
Dina El Odessy is a DPhil student in the University of Oxford, her current doctoral research focuses on the relationship between pedagogic practices, cultural values and educational principles espoused and enacted in community schools in Egypt.
Her research also explores the potential of critical pedagogy in empowering school stakeholders by attempting to discover if community schools have the potential to become sites of praxis in which reflexive action is executed on a collective basis. It is expected that the study may provide new insights into the potential of community schools to provide self-governing learning spaces as well as explain their role in enacting critical pedagogies, along with the challenges that these approaches face in the Egyptian context. In addition, the study attempts to address an existent research gap on alternative models of community schooling, and it is expected to be the first to conceptualize the role of community schools in the analytical framework of holistic critical pedagogy.
Prior to starting her doctoral studies, Dina has earned an MA in Education from University College London (UCL) and a Bachelor of Arts in English from Alexandria University. She believes in the interconnected and multi-disciplinary nature of knowledge, and accordingly has been pursuing different learning opportunities in positive psychology, brain-based learning, postcolonialism, educational leadership, conflict resolution, history and cultural studies.
Dina has also been recently working as the Deputy Director of Alexandria International Schools in Egypt, as well as a freelance writer, and educational entrepreneur. She hopes to become a happiness activist, aiming at bringing about small ripples of change through intermittently running lectures and workshops on well-being, the science of happiness and holistic development.
Research Interests
- Critical pedagogy
- Community schools
- Equity and empowerment
- Holistic education
- Alternative education
- Islamic education
- Social and emotional learning
- Informal learning
- Political education
Title of Thesis
Emergent Critical Pedagogies in Community Schools in Egypt: A Multi-sited Ethnography
Publications
Hearts in Exile: A New Historical Reading of Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun
Conference Papers
Islamic Holistic Philosophy, September 2017, ‘One World’: Logical and Ethical Implications of Holism” Conference, University of Exeter
Olga is a co-convenor of the Philosophy of Education Reading Group at the Department of Education at the University of Oxford. Olga’s main research interest is in the topics of epistemic injustice across all levels of education and across national borders with a focus on higher education and the process of knowledge production in academic institutes and universities. Her core interest lies between the areas of social epistemology, research on research (RoR) and comparative and international education (CIE). She has been a recipient of multiple research awards in the United States and the United Kingdom and is an elected co-convenor of the Comparative and International Education Special Interest Group at the British Educational Research Association (BERA).
Her new research at Oxford will explore the epistemically just and unjust practices as experienced by scholars from Kazakhstan during the internationalisation process in the social sciences and the humanities. Prior joining Oxford, Olga taught at University College London Institute of Education in London on the topics of migrant, refugee and minority education and European education traditions from a comparative lens.
Publications
- Mun, O. (2020). ‘Epistemic Injustices in Internationalising Humanities and Social Sciences: A Case Study of Higher Education and Science Institutes in Kazakhstan.’ Centre for International Higher Education, Boston College. https://www.bc.edu/content/dam/bc1/schools/lsoe/sites/cihe/publication/Perspectives/Perspectives%20No%2018.pdf
- Mun, O. and Gafu, G. (in press) ‘University Research Capacity in Kazakhstan’. Higher School of Economics, Russia.
- Kandiko Howson, C., Mun, O. and Walker, R. (2020). ‘Academic Activism in STEM fields: Discipline in Theory and Practice.’ Philosophy and Theory of Higher Education Society.
- Aizuddin M., Habibi A., Mun, O. (in press, 2020). ‘Post-Colonialism in Comparative and International Education.’ In Jules, T., Shields, R., Thomas, M. (Ed.), Bloomsbury Handbook of Theory in Comparative and International Education.
- Palandjian, G., Silova, I., Mun, O., Zholdashaliyeva, R. (2018). ‘Gender and Nation in Postsocialist Educational Transformations.’ In Silova, I., & Chankseliani, M. (Eds.), Comparing Post-Socialist Transformations: Education in Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union. Oxford: Symposium Books.
- Mun, O., & Zholdashaliyeva, R. (2017). ‘Alippe, Bukvar’ and Gender: A comparative analysis of early literacy textbooks in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.’ In E. Brown & R. Craven & G. McLean (Ed.), International Advances in Education: Global Initiatives for Equity and Social Justice Series. Information Age Publishing
- Patel, K. and Mun, O. (2017). ‘Marketing ‘development’ in the neoliberal university.’ DPU Working Papers https://www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/development/case-studies/2017/sep/marketing-development-neoliberal-university
- Fimyar, O., Saniyazova, A. & Mun, O. (2017) ‘Methodology of Collaborative Research: Or, Searching for a Synergy in the Study of Student Transition in Kazakhstan.’ In SAGE Research Methods Cases. London, United Kingdom: SAGE Publications.
- Mun, O. (2015). ‘(Re)imagining national identity through early literacy textbooks in Kazakhstan’, Forum of Young Central Asian Experts, 2nd edition. http://caa-network.org/archives/5620
- Silova, I., Mead Yaqub, M., Mun, O., Palandjian, G. (2014). ‘Pedagogies of Space: (re)imagining nation and childhood in post-Soviet states.’ Global Studies of Childhood, 4(3), 195-209.
- Silova, I., Brezhenyuk, V., Kudasova, M., Mun, O., Artemev, N. (2014). ‘Youth Protests against Privatisation of Education in post-Soviet states.’ European Education, 46(3), 56-65.