Dr Suhraiya Jivraj has been recognised as a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now known as AdvanceHE).
Senior Fellowship demonstrates a personal and institutional commitment to professionalism in learning and teaching in higher education. Senior Fellows must demonstrate a thorough understanding of effective approaches to teaching and learning support as a key contribution to high quality student learning. As experienced members of staff, they must also demonstrate impact and influence through their leadership, management and mentoring.
Dr Jivraj has also been promoted to Reader at Kent Law School where her work draws on critical race/religion theories and feminist/queer of colour decolonial perspectives to explore contemporary socio-legal problematics in the fields of law and religion, equalities, anti-discrimination and human rights law, gender and sexuality and Islamic family law.
Dr Jivraj’s current work brings together her ethical commitment to critical and inclusive pedagogy and decolonising work. She was awarded a UoK Teaching Enhancement Small Support Award (TESSA) in 2018/19 to collaborate with her Race, Religion and Law Module students on decolonising the curriculum (DtC). The project soon extended across the university resulting in the DecoloniseUKC Manifesto. The DtC is now continuing through Suhraiya’s role as Deputy Director of Education for Decolonising the Curriculum and under her Directorship of the Centre for Sexuality, Race and Gender Justice (Centre SeRGJ). She also coordinates the student-led Kaleidoscope Hub activities and the Kaleidoscope Network for staff and students as part of her broader work on decolonising knowledge production. Dr Jivraj’s research in this area includes a Social and Legal Studies Association (SLSA) funded empirical study entitled: ‘Embracing and Reflecting increasing BME Diversity in Law School Curricula: Why and How?’. The ‘Decolonising Law Schools’ project aims to improve understanding of the ‘inclusivity’ of contemporary law curricula to highlight instances of failure and success and to begin to co-develop an agenda for change supported by the legal profession.
Dr Jivraj is one of over 124,000 Fellows across the world, including Kent Law School’s Professor Nick Grief and Professor Amanda Perry-Kessaris.