Project Team

Building an Intercultural Pedagogy for Higher Education in Conditions of Conflict and Protracted Crises: Languages, Identity, Culture!

Professor Prue Holmes, Principal Investigator
School of Education, Durham University – UK

Prue Holmes is Professor in Intercultural Communication and International Education, and Director of Postgraduate Research in the School of Education, Durham University, United Kingdom. She researches and publishes in the areas of intercultural and international education, languages and intercultural communication, and intercultural dialogue; she also supervises doctoral students in these areas. Prue has taught English language and intercultural education in higher education in China, Hong Kong, Italy, and New Zealand. She was a co-investigator on the project “Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state” (AH/L006936/1), and is a co-investigator on the Erasmus+ project “Resources for Interculturality in Chinese Higher Education” (RICH-Ed). She chairs theInternational Association of Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC), and co-edits the Multilingual Matters book series Researching Multilingually.

Dr. Marta Moskal, Co-Investigator
School of Education, Durham University – UK

Marta Moskal is a sociologist of education with an interdisciplinary background in sociology, human geography, and social policy. She works in the School of Education, Durham University, United Kingdom. She researches and publishes in the areas of international mobility and education from the perspective of culture, identity change and social inclusion. Much of her work develops around the experiences of migrant children, youth and families and more recently international students. She is interested in the issue of sustainable management of cultural diversity in higher education and other settings. She has been principal investigator and co-investigator on a number of projects including ESRC (2016-19) on identity, belonging and citizenship of Eastern European migrant youth in the UK (co-I); ESRC IAA (2016-17) on experiences of migrants and ethnic minorities’ young people in Scottish school education (co-PI): the British Academy (2014-15) on international students mobility and capacity building in their home countries (PI).

Dr. Ayşe Zişan Furat, Co-Investigator
Faculty of Theology, Istanbul University – Turkey

Ayse Zişan Furat is Associate Professor in Religious Education at the Faculty of Theology, Istanbul University, Turkey. She researches and publishes in the areas of history of education policies in conflict zones, intercultural educational settings, intercultural dialogue, and development of religious identities. She lectures religious education, history of Islamic sciences, and late Ottoman education policies. She has participated in many academic projects and conducted research in Germany, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Lebanon. She is also the author of two books Development of Identity in Islamic Communities and Religious Education and Muslim Religious Education under a non-Muslim Government: Austro Hungarian Bosnia.

Professor John Corbett, Co-Investigator
School of Arts, Sciences and Humanities, University of São Paulo – Brazil

John Corbett is based in the Department of Modern Languages at the University of São Paulo where he teaches English linguistics. He has researched in the area of intercultural language education, his most notable publications being An Intercultural Approach to English Language Teaching (2003) and, with Peih-ying Lu, English in Medical Education: An Intercultural Approach to Teaching Language and Values (2012), both published by Multilingual Matters. He has also written an EFL teachers’ resource book Intercultural Language Activities (CUP 2011) and he is a past editor of the indexed journal, Language and Intercultural Communication. He has worked in higher education institutions in Scotland, Russia, Macau and Brazil.

Dr. Nazmi Al-Masri, Co-Investigator
Faculty of Arts, the Islamic University of Gaza – Palestine

Nazmi Al-Masri is Associate Professor in TEFL and curriculum development. In 1994, he obtained his PhD from the School of Education, the University of Manchester, UK. Since then, he has been teaching undergraduate and graduate students several courses, including Technology in TEFL, Oral Communication Skills, Curriculum Development and Evaluation, and Language Assessment. Since 2013, he has been a co-investigator on more than 15 British and EU-funded research, capacity building and mobility projects in full partnership with universities in the UK, Finland, Norway, Germany, Austria, France and Spain. He researches and publishes in multilingualism and pedagogical practices in context of conflict and crises. One of these projects was “Researching multilingually at the borders of language, the body, law and the state”. Currently he is a co-investigator on “Online Training of Trainers: Initiative to Develop Pedagogical Practices in Palestinian Higher Education” in partnership with Tampere University, Finland.

Dr Beatriz Peña Dix, Co-Investigator
School of Languages and Culture, University of the Andes – Colombia

Beatriz Peña Dix is Assistant Professor in Bilingualism, Bilingual Education and Foreign Language Pedagogies in the School of Languages and Culture, University of the Andes, Bogotá, Colombia. She researches and publishes in the areas of bilingualism, autonomy and critical thinking in foreign language education, intercultural competence and teacher training, and Intercultural English Language Teaching (IELT). She has taught English language and trained foreign language teachers in higher education in Colombia. Beatriz has also trained Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) teachers from Instituut voor de Opleiding van Leraren in Suriname through online international programs and has supervised an important number of postgraduate students in this area.

Dr Ehsan Kharati, Web Developer
Research Associate in Bio-Statistics, Durham Research Methods Centre, Durham University – UK

Ehsan is Research Associate in statistics in department of Anthropology and fellow of Durham Research Methods Centre at Durham University. He got his PhD in 2018 in statistical science from University of Padova in Italy working on Data Mining and Machine learning techniques in Big Data analysis. He is working on design of trials and correspond statistical analysis. He is the web developer of BIPHEC project.