Staff profile

Oakleigh is an Associate Professor and Director of EDI in the School of Education. She is Programme Director for the MA Education International in Geneva and teaches on the MA courses Intercultural and International Education, Intercultural Communicatin and International Development and Education. Before joining Durham in September 2014, Oakleigh was a Lecturer in Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, where she lectured and supervised on the Undergraduate course and on the Politics Development and Democratic Education Masters and the Research in Second Language Education Masters programme. 

Oakleigh graduated with a sociology and politics degree from Sciences Po Paris in France, holds an M.Phil from the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences in Cambridge on the sociology and politics of European society, and completed her Ph.D in Sociology of Education within the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. Her doctoral project adopted a cross-national perspective to investigate the experiences and identities of immigrant-background children in primary schools in France and England. It explored the interplay between global, national and local dimensions in shaping the experience of immigrant-background children in schools. 

Oakleigh was actively involved in the first two stages of the Bell Foundation funded project on Educational Achievement, Language Education and Disadvantage (EALead) at the University of Cambridge.

Oakleigh’s areas of research focus on the relationship of education to issues of language, religion, immigration, integration, globalisation, identity, gender and citizenship. She is interested in developing cross-national research and methodologies to conduct research with diverse communities in European countries. Theoretically, her work is mainly inspired by the works of Paul Ricoeur, Hannah Arendt and Pierre Bourdieu to investigate the intersection between wider structures and the subjectivities of young immigrants’ identities and experiences.

Another key area of Oakleigh’s work is Global Citizenship Education, which she has approached through a variety of perspectives, ranging from theoretically-based discussions to large scale survey data analysis. She was an invited speaker on the topic of Global Citizenship at Sciences Po Paris and the Palais de Tokyo, as part of the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE). 

Interested in the theory and the practice of Global Citizenship Education, she has also been actively involved in Ustinov College’s Global Citizenship programme and in the development of the Global Citizenship component of the Durham Award. 

Her recent interdisciplinary research project, funded by the World Innovation Summit for Education (WISE), evaluates the impact of elements of Global Citizenship Education on young people’s attitudes towards diversity, tolerance, and political participation. This project brought together perspectives from sociology of education and economics to analyse data from the 2016 International Civic and Citizenship Education Study (ICCS). Using logit and multinomial logit type models, this research project analysed data across 23 countries, which included 2,500 observations for each country

Completed Supervisions

Intercultural communication: the perceptions of university students learning Chinese as a foreign language in China.

A Case Study of the Conception of Curriculum Internationalisation in a Secondary School in Kazakhstan

What do polyglots know about learning languages? Assessing the beliefs and perceptions of polyglots vis-à-vis language learning.

Playing with Snow, with Peace and Freedom - English on the Margins: The educational experiences of young refugees in Bangkok, Thailand.

Developing International Mindedness through the Arts in the International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programme (DP): An International Survey Design Conducted across all Continents.

Information for prospective doctoral research student supervisions

Oakleigh would be pleased to hear from potential students with research interests in the field of comparative and cross-national studies; immigration, diversity and integration; identity, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, language and religion; English as an additional language in schools; global citizenship social theory; intercultural and international education.

 

Research Interests

 * Immigration, diversity, multiculturalism, political and social integration * Globalisation and citizenship 

* Identity, gender, race, ethnicity, language, religion 

* Decolonising the curriculum

* Intercultural and international education 

* Language, migration and social integration 

* English as an additional language in school 

* Comparative and cross-national studies 

* Social theory 

* Paul Ricoeur

* Hannah Arendt

* Pierre Bourdieu

• Durham University Evidence Centre for Education (DECE)

• British Council Ukraine Exploratory Grant
• Indicators for GCED and their Impact on Young People’s Attitudes and Conflict in Society (Global Citizenship)

• 2020: Arabethan Lecuyer - Inclusion Narratives Within LGBT+ Education(£12069.00 from Natural Environmental Research Council)
• 2018: Global Citizenship(£31343.40 from Qatar National Research Fund)
• 2018: Global Citizenship(£31344.13 from Qatar National Research Fund)
• 2016: British Council Ukraine Exploratory Grant(£2400.00 from British Council)

• 2019: : Invited speaker at Sciences Po Paris and the Palais de Tokyo for the regional World Innovation Summit in Education (WISE) conference in Paris, France.
• 2017: : Invited speaker at York University
• 2017: : Invited visiting scholar at Sciences Po Paris, France.
• 2016: : Invited speaker at the University of East Anglia
• 2016: : Keynote speaker at the Ustinov College conference on Global Citizenship.
• 2015: : Invited keynote speaker at the annual English as an Additional Language teacher training conference for Manchester Local Authority (One Education).
• 0000: : Reviewer for ESRC, Race, Ethnicity and Education, Compare, Gender and Education.

Authored book

• Welply, Oakleigh (2022). Immigration, integration and education: children of immigrants in France and England. Routledge.
• Evans,Michael, Schneider, Claudia, Arnot, Madeleine, Fisher, Linda, Forbes, Karen, Liu, Yongcan & Welply, Oakleigh (2020). Language Development and Social Integration of Students with English as an Additional Language. Cambridge University Press.

Chapter in book

• Welply, Oakleigh (2020). Inclusion and Migration. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education. Noblit, George Oxford University Press.
• Welply, O. (2019). Diversity and inclusion in the classroom: young immigrant’s perspectives in France and England. In The SAGE Handbook of Inclusion and Diversity in Education. Schuelka, M. Johnstone, C., Thomas, G. & Artiles, A. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 365-379.
• Welply, O. (2017). An exploration of immigrant-background children's identities and their ideas of place in relation to their global imaginaries and languages. In Students, Places, and Identities in English and the Arts: Creative spaces in education. Stevens D., & Lockney, D London: Routledge.

Edited book

• Arnot, M., Schneider, C. & Welply, O. (2016). Education, Mobilities and Migration: People, Ideas and Resources. London: Routledge.

Journal Article

• Welply, Oakleigh (2023). English as an additional language (EAL): decolonising provision and practice. Curriculum Journal 34(1): 62-82.
• McCusker, S. & Welply, O. (2021). C.O.A.C.H: A cross-national study of coach training for teachers across 5 countries. Coaching: An International Journal of Theory, Research & Practice 14(1): 39-61.
• Nygren, T., Kronlid, D., Larsson, E. Novak, J., Bentrovato, D., Wasserman, J. Welply, O., Anamika, A & Guath, M. (2020). Global Citizenship Education for Global Citizenship? Students’ Views on Learning About, Through, and For Human Rights, Peace, and Sustainable Development in England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, and Sweden. Journal of Social Science Education 19(4): 63-97.
• Nolgard,O, Nygren,T, Tibbits,F, Anamika, A, Bentrovato,D, Enright,P, Wasserman, J & Welply, O (2020). A global history in a global world? Human rights in History Education in the Global North and South. Historical Encounters. A journal of historical consciousness, historical cultures, and historical education 7(1): 24-49.
• Welply, O. (2020). Inclusion across borders: young immigrants in France and England. FIRE, Forum for International Research in Education 6(1): 40-63.
• Welply,O. (2019). A crisis in education? An Arendtian perspective on citizenship and belonging in France and England. British Journal of Sociology of Education 40(6): 759-775.
• Welply Oakleigh (2019). Global Imaginaries: re-thinking possibilities for GCE. Journal of International Education Research and Development Education 42(4): 27-33.
• Welply, O. (2018). ‘I’m not being offensive but…’ intersecting discourses of discrimination towards Muslim children in school. Race Ethnicity and Education 21(3): 370-389.
• Welply, O. (2017). ‘My language … I don’t know how to talk about it’ children’s views on language diversity in primary schools in France and England. Language and Intercultural Communication 17(4): 437-454.
• Welply, O. (2015). Re-imagining Otherness: An exploration of the global imaginaries of children from immigrant backgrounds in primary schools in France and England. European Educational Research Journal 14(5): 430-453.
• Arnot, M., Schneider, C. & Welply, O. (2013). Education, mobilities and migration people, ideas and resources. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 43(5): 567-579.
• Welply, O (2010). Language difference and identity in multicultural classrooms: the views of 'immigrant- background' children in French and English primary schools. Compare: A Journal of Comparative and International Education 40(3): 345-358.

Report

• Welply, O., Taamouti, A. & Bracons Font, G. (2019). Evaluating The Impact Of Global Citizenship Education On Young People’s Attitudes Towards Equality, Diversity And Tolerance. WISE/Qatar Foundation.
• Arnot, M, Schneider, C, Evans, M, Liu, Y, Welply, O & Davies-Tutt, T (2014). School approaches to the education of EAL students: Language development, social integration and achievement. Cambridge: Bell Foundation.