Professor Reza Gholami was conferred to the Fellowship of the Academy in spring 2026. He is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Birmingham, and his research explores questions of belongingness, diversity, inter-communal relations, and community engagement in education.
Professor Reza GholamiFAcSS
As part of his research, Reza works closely with international collaborators to support the development of innovative educational resources to support local schools and foster intercommunal learning. His recent research has included a project examining issues of belonging and diversity in primary schools through drama-based pedagogies, as well as a Leverhulme Trust funded project exploring how young people in England engage with freedom of expression around sensitive issues of race and faith.
Reza is Executive Editor of the journal Educational Review, and he has authored several books including the monographs Knowledges that Destroy (with D. Tran) and Secularism and Identity and the co-edited volume Education and Extremisms: Re-Thinking Liberal Pedagogies in the Contemporary World. Alongside his Fellowship of the Academy, Reza is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA), and the director of the Birmingham Research Group on Education Policy (BREP).
Why do the social sciences matter?
The social sciences offer systematic, rigorous ways to understand and engage with social processes and relationships. Considering that human activities and concerns – be they economic, political, educational, environmental, and so on – are almost always social in nature, the social sciences matter centrally to the flourishing of humans and the planet as a whole. The social sciences are arguably especially important today given the particular challenges we face, from climate change and AI to disinformation, extremism, and rampant inequality. They are therefore crucial for ensuring that social systems are effective and fair through evidence-based, intellectually rigorous engagement with communities and policymakers globally.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
What I enjoy most about my work is the opportunity to apply social scientific theories and methods in collaborative partnerships that promise to have a positive social impact. As a sociologist of education interested in questions of diversity, belonging and inter-communal relationships, I spend much of my time working with a wide range of non-academic partners, including schools, community groups, and the third sector. Together, we work to re-imagine how the vexing challenges around belonging and equity, and in turn related issues such as interrelationships and attainment, can be addressed in and through education.
What is the most urgent issue social scientists need to tackle today and within the next three years?
The issues I mentioned above are all urgent. Some, like the climate crisis, pose an existential threat and so must be prioritised. But this is not a stand-alone issue; it intersects in important ways with a range of other social, political, and technological challenges that must be tackled in conjunction. In my own area of work, one of the most pressing challenges is rapidly increasing social and political polarisation, which undermines the principles of democracy, conviviality, and social justice. Polarisation is driven, and often exacerbated, by social media-enabled disinformation campaigns, distrust in ‘traditional’ political institutions, and deepening economic and social inequities. Schools, and education in general, have an important role to play in supporting children and young people to navigate these issues and develop the political literacy and skills required to live alongside each other as well-informed and peaceful citizens (ideally, in my view, of a pluralist, equitable democracy). However, financial and political pressures on education systems in many parts of the world, including the Western world, over the past few decades have greatly undermined schools’ and universities’ ability to perform this vital function.
What does being a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences mean to you?
It is a privilege and a responsibility. It offers a great platform from which to articulate and address the issues mentioned above, and it amplifies my voice as a social scientist. I feel that I have joined a group of highly dedicated experts who, in their diversity, share a great deal in terms of the goals that they are pursuing. As such, I feel a renewed sense of energy and commitment to continue to do the very best that I can to produce social scientific work of the highest quality and to use my work for positive social impact.