Office:
Ponderosa Commons 3073
Website:
http://www.ccie.educ.ubc.ca/
About
Research Interests
Research Supervision Interests
I am interested in supervising research students in the following areas:
- Cultural studies of education and critical pedagogy
- Anti-racism and related discourses: multiculturalism, critical race theory, interculturalism.
- Identity and representation issues (youth, Africana, politics of difference, complexities of identity and identification)
- Comparative and international education issues
- Postcolonialism, decolonialism and diaspora
Individual research Interests
Bio
Handel Kashope Wright has been variously Canada Research Chair of Comparative Cultural Studies, David Lam Chair of Multicultural Education and co-editor of the journal International Education. He is currently Full Professor and Director of the Centre for Culture, Identity and Education http://www.ccie.educ.ubc.ca. He is co-editor of the book series African and Diasporic Cultural Studies (University of Toronto Press), associate editor of Critical Arts and serves on the editorial board of several cultural studies and education journals including Cultural Studies; the European Journal of Cultural Studies; Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education; and Postcolonial Directions in Education. Professor Wright is Senior Research Associate, Department of Communication Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa and has published extensively on continental African cultural studies, cultural studies of education, critical multiculturalism, anti-racist education, qualitative research and post-reconceptualization curriculum theorizing.
Research and Education
Education
Research Projects
Selected Publications
Selected Books
De B’beri, B., Reid-Maroney, N. & Wright, H.K. (Eds.). (2014). The Promised Land? History and Historiography of Black Experience in Chatham-Kent’s Settlements and Beyond. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Wright, H.K., Singh, M. & Race, R. (Eds.). (2012). Precarious international multicultural education: Hegemony, dissent and rising alternatives. Sense Publishers.
Wright, H.K. & Abdi, A. (Eds.). (2012). The Dialectics of African Education and Western Discourses: Appropriation, Ambivalence and Alternatives. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Wright, H.K. & Morris, M. (Eds.). (2012). Transnationalism and cultural studies. London & New York: Routledge.
Tomaselli, K.G. & Wright, H.K. (Eds.). (2011). Africa, Cultural Studies and Difference. London & New York: Routledge.
Wright, H.K. (2004). A Prescience of African Cultural Studies: The future of literature studies in Africa is not what it was. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.
Ten Selected Edited Journal Issues
Wright, H.K. (2016). The Worldliness of Stuart Hall. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19 (1).
Rutten, K., Rodman, G, & Wright, H.K. (2013). Cultural Studies and Critical Literacies. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 16 (5).
Morris, M. & Wright, H.K. (Eds.). (2009). Transnationalism and cultural studies. Cultural Studies, 23 (2).
Wright, H.K. & Tomaselli, K. (Eds.). (2008). Cultural Studies in Africa / African cultural studies. Cultural Studies, 22 (2).
Wright, H.K., Nashon, S., & Anderson, D. (Eds.). (2007). African Education: Worldviews, Ways of Knowing and Pedagogy. Diaspora, Indigenous and Minority Education, 1 (4).
Wright, H.K. & Lather, P. (Eds). (2006). Paradigm Proliferation in Educational Research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19 (1).
Wright, H.K. & Maton, K. (Eds). (2004). The glocal presence of cultural studies in education. The Review of Education, Pedagogy & Cultural Studies, 26 (1, 2) [double issue]
Wright, H.K. (Ed.). (2003). Diasporic Africans and the Question of Identity. Critical Arts, 17 (1, 2) [double issue].
Wright, H.K. (Ed.). (2003). Qualitative Research in Education. Tennessee Education, 32 (2).
Maton, K. & Wright, H.K. (Eds.). (2002). Returning Cultural Studies to Education. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 5 (4).
Ten Selected Refereed Journal Articles
Wright, H.K. (2016). Stuart Hall’s Relevance for the Study of African Blackness. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 19 (1), 85-99.
Wright, H.K. (2011). Everything Old Ought to be New Again: Post-Reconceptualization Curriculum as Presentist Praxis. Journal of curriculum and pedagogy, 8 (1), 19-22.
Wright, H.K. (2006). Are we (T)here Yet? Qualitative Research in Education’s Profuse and Contested Present. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 19 (6), 793-802.
Wright, H.K. (2005). Does Hlebowitsh Improve on Curriculum History? Reading a Re-Reading for its Political Purpose and Implications. Curriculum Inquiry, 35 (1), 103-117
Wright, H.K. (2003). Cultural Studies as Praxis: (Making) An Autobiographical Case. Cultural Studies, 17 (6), 805-822.
Wright, H. K. (2003). An Endarkened Feminist Epistemology? Black Feminist Identity, Difference and the Politics of Educational Research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16 (2), 197-214.
Wright, H. K. (2000). Nailing Jell-O to the Wall: Pinpointing Aspects of State-of-the-Art Curriculum Theorizing on the Threshold of the 21st Century. Educational Researcher, 29 (5), 4-13.
Wright, H. K. (1998). Dare we De-Centre Birmingham? Troubling the Origin and Trajectories of Cultural Studies. European Journal of Cultural Studies, 1, (1), 33-56.
Wright, H.K. (1995). (Re)Conceptualizing Pedagogy as Cultural Praxis. Education and Society: International Journal in Education and Sociology, 13, (1), 67-81.
Wright, H.K. (1994). Multiculturalism, Anti-Racism, and Afrocentrism: The Politics of Race in Educational Praxis. International Journal of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies. 1, (2), 13-31.
Ten Selected Keynote Addresses
Association for Cultural Studies International Summer Institute (Bloemfontein, South Africa), December, 2015. Keynote: “What Has African Cultural Studies Done for You Lately?”
Journal of Curriculum Theorizing Conference (Bergamo, Ohio), October, 2011. Keynote: “Presentist Praxis, History and the Cultural Studies of Education Formation”
Fifth International Conference on Foreign Literature Teaching (Asia University, Taichung, Taiwan) June, 2010. Keynote: “In Defense of Transitions from Literary to Cultural Studies in a Time of Liquidity.”
INHolland University and VU University, (Amsterdam, Holland) March, 2010. Mix-In: Conference on Diversity in Higher Education. Keynote: “National and Global Politics of Difference: The Makings of ‘Glocal’ Citizenship in and Beyond Canada”
American Educational Research Association (Denver, CO), May, 2010. Qualitative Research Special Interest Group. Egon Guba Keynote Address- What Difference Does Difference Make? Identity (and) Politics in Qualitative Research in Education.
Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Department of Applied Social Sciences (Hong Kong), May 2008. Symposium on Addressing Diversity & Difference: Implications for Practice and Policy. Keynote: “Addressing Diversity/Difference: Rationales and Discourses for Social Justice and Community Making.”
Canadian Society for the Study of Education (Vancouver), June 2008. Comparative and International Education Society of Canada. Keynote: “Africans and African Studies in Canadian Comparative and International Education.”
St. Patrick’s College and Blanchardstown Area Partnership (Dublin, Ireland), October 2007. Cultural Diversity in Schools: Challenges and Opportunities for Irish Education. Keynote: “Who needs Multiculturalism and Multicultural Education in a Time of Liquid Communities?”
Iberian Association of Cultural Studies. Ninth International Culture and Power Conference (Lisbon, Portugal), November 2003. Keynote: “Black Ambivalent Elaboration and the End(s) of Critical Pedagogy”
International Conference on Diasporic Futures, Global Times & Post-Coloniality (Department of Cultural Studies and Sociology, Birmingham University, Birmingham, England) March, 1997. Keynote: “The (Im)Possibility of (Articulating) African Identity.”
EDST Activity
Students Supervised
Sample Postdoctoral Fellow Supervisions
Dan Cui, PhD. Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and Killam Postdoctoral Research Fellow. “The Integration of Second Generation Racialized Minorities in Canada and the United States: A Critical and Comparative Study”
Sample Ph.D Supervisions
Dilek Kayaalp. Social, Cultural and Educational Inclusion/Exclusion of Turkish Immigrant Youth in Canada.
Maryam Nabavi. (Un)Learning Citizenship in Canada: Iranian Immigrant Youths’ Silences, Contradictions and Expressions.
Pearl Hunt. Music Lessons: A Cultural Studies Analysis of Music’s Capacity for critical Pedagogy and Methodology.
Sample Ed.D Supervisions
Omar Abdullahi. Co-supervisor of Ed.D Multicultural education (case study) on Islamic Education in a Multicultural Context: The Case of Two Educational Institutions in British Columbia.
Sample MA Supervisions
Peter Lee. Rethinking “Chineseness” and the Identities of Vancouver’s Chinese Youth: Ascribed and Performed Identities and the Implications for Education.
Jasmine Dares. “Poetry Out of Poison:” Exploring Rap Music as Critical Pedagogy.
Sample MEd Supervisions
Angela Kelly. Graduating Paper: “Outsiders on the Inside: Finding a Place for Refugees in Educational Discourse”
Nadia Mallay. Graduating Paper: “Its Not Just Black and White: Engaging Marginalized Students of Canadian Public Education Through Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.”
Taha Ahmadi Vostakolaei. Graduating Paper: ” Citizenship for Today’s Iran: A Contextualized Decolonization”
Nadia Mallay. Its Not Just Black and White: Engaging Marginalized Students of Canadian Public Education Through Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality.
Jason Charles. Multiculturalism and Students’ Perceptions of Canada at a British Columbia Offshore School in China.
Jesse Giacomini. Respecting the Power of Liminality in my ELSA Class.
Courses taught
Doctoral
EDST 601B: Doctoral Seminar in Advanced Methodologies in Education
CCFI 601B: Cultural Studies and Multiculturalism/Anti-Racism Education
CCFI 601C: Cultural Studies and Comparative Multiculturalism/Anti-racism Education
Graduate
EDST 503A: Ethnography and Education
EDST 506A: Introduction to Qualitative Methods
EDST 508A: Review of Research in Educational Studies: Introduction to Qualitative Methods
EDST 565B: Cultural Studies Praxis
EDST 565B/CCFI 572A: Multiculturalism, Anti-racism and Education
EDST 578: Multiculturalism and its Critical Alternatives: Diversity in Education and Society
EDST 585: SCPE Capstone
Undergraduate
EDST 403: Education, Knowledge and Curriculum
EDST 314: Issues in Education
Additional
Community Work
Dr. Wright serves on the City of Vancouver’s Black History Month Event Planning Committee. He also serves in an unofficial capacity as advisor to the Executive of the community group, Sierra Leoneans in British Columbia and the UBC student group, Africa Awareness.
Memberships
Much of Professor Wright’s work is in the field of cultural studies where in addition to presentations and publications, he undertakes service. In addition to his service on the editorial or advisory board of several cultural studies journals, this includes serving on the international advisory board of the University of East London Cultural Studies Book Series Radical Cultural Studies (http://www.rowmaninternational.com/series/radical-cultural-studies) and the Cardiff School of English, Communication and Philosophy book series Critical Perspectives on Theory, Culture and Politics (http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/encap/cct/tcp/index.html). Professor Wright is founding member of the Cultural Studies Association (USA) (http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/) and has served two four year terms as African representative on the Executive of the Association for Cultural Studies (http://www.cultstud.org/wordpress/).