This is an in-person event for UofG Staff and Students Only.  A valid UofG Staff or Student email address is required to book your ticket.  

Join Dr Saima Salehjee and Prof Mike Watts as they talk about their new book ‘Learning to Succeed in Science: Stories of south Asian Women in Britain’ which aims to create positive images of south Asian women in science to combat negative stereotypes associated with women of colour living in Britain by featuring over sixty stories of UK-based south Asian women’s stories of successes in science.

These stories highlight the ways that successful women learn to succeed, make meaning of success in their science lives and share their success stories. For these women, success goes beyond achieving educational degrees, promotions, major professional gains, prizes or awards.

The success in their science lives include finding contentment and happiness, prospering ‘against the tide’, having role models, mentoring and being mentored, having an appetite for continual learning, working hard within the process and being empowered to be altruistic.

"In our work, we draw upon on theories of intersectionality, science identity, ‘wearing’ and ‘balancing’ cultures and on transformational learning theory. Our empirical data considers the nature of stories and how we ‘story’ other people’s accounts through an ‘entre-deux’ stance. We develop issues of pedagogy and consider what might be a ‘Pedagogy for Success’, and what this can offer the participants in our research. The outcomes range from small shifts in schoolgirls’ attitudes toward ‘being sciencey’ along with more significant turns in the direction of adult women’s science lives. We adopt five central features of Pedagogy for Success that include the interactions and relations between teachers and learners, a focus on differentiated learners’ needs and goals, attention to specific learning objectives, an appreciation of the multi-dimensional flow of knowledge between teachers and learners, between learners and learners, and the ‘experiential texture’ and ‘evaluate tone’ set throughout their learning journeys.In our work, we draw upon on theories of intersectionality, science identity, ‘wearing’ and ‘balancing’ cultures and on transformational learning theory.

Our empirical data considers the nature of stories and how we ‘story’ other people’s accounts through an ‘entre-deux’ stance. We develop issues of pedagogy and consider what might be a ‘Pedagogy for Success’, and what this can offer the participants in our research.

The outcomes range from small shifts in schoolgirls’ attitudes toward ‘being sciencey’ along with more significant turns in the direction of adult women’s science lives. We adopt five central features of Pedagogy for Success that include the interactions and relations between teachers and learners, a focus on differentiated learners’ needs and goals, attention to specific learning objectives, an appreciation of the multi-dimensional flow of knowledge between teachers and learners, between learners and learners, and the ‘experiential texture’ and ‘evaluate tone’ set throughout their learning journeys."

Saima Salehjee is a Senior Lecturer of Education at the University of Glasgow. She is responsible for teaching (mainly science education and social research methods) and supervising undergraduate and postgraduate research students within the School of Social and Environmental Sustainability. Her publications focus on science literacy, pedagogy, intersectionality, the culture of science, science identity, and identity transformations over a lifespan of individuals from different ethnic, religious, and sexual backgrounds. She is a co-convenor of the British Educational Research Association (BERA)'s Race, Ethnicity and Education Special Interest Group and organises training sessions for staff and students on Anti-Racism practices in educational institutions.

Mike Watts is Professor of Education in the Department of Education at Brunel University London. He conducts ‘naturalistic’ people-orientated research principally in science education, public understanding of science, and in scholarship in higher education. He has conducted major studies in both formal and informal educational settings in the UK and abroad, and has published widely through numerous books, journal articles and conference papers. He leads in the Department on Knowledge Transfer and Knowledge Exchange, enjoys exploring new technologies for learning, and writing about creative (sometimes transgressive!) pedagogical approaches to learning and teaching. He teaches at all levels within the Department of Education and currently supervises 14 PhD students.