Renée DePalma
I have been a professor at the University of A Coruña, Faculty of Education Sciences, since 2010. I obtained my doctorate in 2003 from the University of Delaware (United States). As an educator, I am interested in analysing the social construction of marginalisation within and outside the school environment, in order to imagine and realise an emancipatory education. Given that the school itself is a hegemonic institution, how can educational practices be designed that question and break with the patterns that maintain the status quo of inequality and exclusion? I am interested in critical pedagogy and all related perspectives (linguistic awareness, queer pedagogy, etc.) because they offer possibilities for a profound rethinking of the everyday and, therefore, the opportunity to imagine new, groundbreaking, impertinent, and fairer possibilities. Global Citizenship Education (GCED) seems particularly promising due to its recognition of the inequalities between the Global South and North and the commitment it demands of us, as citizens, to seek solutions. I have been researching GCED since 2014, and I hope to continue on this exciting path alongside my colleagues in the ECIGAL group.
About me
I am a Professor of Education at the University of A Coruña, in the Faculty of Education Sciences. I obtained my PhD in 2003 from the University of Delaware (United States), where I helped to establish the La Red Mágica programme, a community-university collaboration project aimed at promoting intercultural relations between students from the Faculty of Education and children of migrant origin in a Latino-American community centre. Between 2006 and 2008, I was employed by the University of Sunderland (UK), where I co-directed the project ‘No Outsiders: Researching approaches to sexualities equality in primary schools’, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. In December 2008, I joined the University of Vigo on an Isidro Parga Pondal fellowship, and in 2010 I was hired by the University of A Coruña. I teach on the Early Childhood Education degree and the Official Master’s in Social Policies and Socio-Community Intervention (MOPS) at the Faculty of Sociology. In 2015, I was appointed Honorary Professor by the Faculty of Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa). Currently, I am secretary of the Centre for Gender and Feminist Studies (CEXeF), and a founding member of the Galician Queer Studies Network. I have been a member of the Galician Council for Culture since 2020, and I am on the editorial board of two journals: the International Journal of Sex Education and Sociology of Education.
I began my research journey in GCE in 2014, participating in the research project “Exploring the possibilities of extending the global dimension of EdD in secondary education. A diagnostic study”, funded by the Xunta de Galicia. I was the principal investigator for two Participatory Action Research (PAR) projects on education for development (EfD), funded by the Xunta de Galicia (2015-2016; 2016-2017). These projects resulted in the book La educación para el desarrollo y la ciudadanía global (2019, Graó). In 2021, I led the project “Mapping critical global citizenship education in Spanish schools”, funded by the Gene/EERA Global Education Award. Since December 2020, I have been the coordinator of the ECIGAL Research Group, and I look forward to continuing on this exciting journey with my colleagues.
Contact
Faculdade de Ciencias da Educación
Universidade da Coruña
Campus de Elviña, s/n
15071 A Coruña