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Welcome to our new Visiting Professor, Roger Slee

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We are delighted to announce that leading author in Disability Studies in Education, Roger Slee, will be Visiting Professor at the School of Sociology and Social Policy and Centre for Disability Studies, University of Leeds from 2017-2022.

Roger Slee is the Vice-Chancellor's appointment to Chair of Education at the University of South Australia. He has previously held research chairs at The University of Western Australia, Goldsmiths College University of London, Victoria University and the Institute of Education UCL where he was the Chair of Inclusive Education. Roger is the former Dean of Education at Goldsmiths, The University of Western Australia and Magill. He holds an honorary chair in critical studies in education at The University of Auckland in New Zealand. He is currently working on major inclusive education projects in Ethiopia and Queensland.

Roger is the Founding Editor of the International Journal of Inclusive Education and is on the Editorial Boards of many other journals. He is also the Editor of an important book series published by Sense Publishers. This Series 'Studies in Inclusive Education' focuses on the ways in which schools contribute to the failure of different student identities on the basis of gender, race, language, sexuality, disability, socio-economic status and geographic isolation. Reflecting Roger's own perspective on Inclusive Education, books in this series are innovative in that they expand the focus from a narrow consideration of what has been traditionally referred to as 'special educational needs' to understand school failure and exclusion in all its forms.  The series considers exclusion and inclusion across all sectors of education: early years, elementary and secondary schooling, and higher education.

Book cover (abstract design) reading The Irregular School. Roger Slee

Book cover: The Irregular School

Roger is the author of many books and articles including the well-known and respected 'The Irregular School. Exclusion, Schooling and Inclusive Education' (Routledge) and most recently, the book 'Inclusive Education isn't Dead Yet, It Just Smells Funny' (Routledge) in which he delves deep into the architecture of modern-day schooling to show how inclusive education has been misappropriated and subverted, manifesting itself in a culture of ableism, an ethic of competitive individualism and the illusion of special educational needs. Roger draws on music and art theory, on real-life observations and global experience, contemporary education policy and practice to reject calls for a return to segregated schooling, and put forward a counterargument for schooling which models the kind of world we want our children to live in – a world of authentic, rather than divided communities.

Beyond academia, Roger has advised governments and education authorities in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Kosovo, Montenegro, Greece, England, India, Iraq and Jordan. He was formerly a Deputy Director General of the Queensland Ministry of Education and has recently stepped down from being the Chair of the Board of Directors for Children and Young People with Disabilities Australia.

We look forward to collaborating with Roger on research initiatives. Roger will also be giving guest lectures and Master-classes to our postgraduate students.