On October 26, CfU and Policy Futures (AU) hosted a public seminar titled “Antiracist Education: Reforming Public Education Through Perspectives From Below”. It was arranged by Associate Professor Jin Hui Li, Assistant Professor Mira C. Skadegård and Research Assistant Hatice Filikci from Center for Education Policy Research (AAU) and Professor Dorthe Staunæs and Postdoc Manté Vertelyté. The seminar is part of ”Reforms in Education: A European Research Network” financed by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet). The seminar started off with a keynote by the esteemed Professor George J. Sefa Dei titled “Anti-Racism education as decolonial and anti-colonial practice”. After the keynote, the professor engaged with questions from the floor.

More than 50 attendees had the pleasure of hearing a number of panelists from the Danish field of antiracist racist. Associate Professor Jin Hui Li (https://vbn.aau.dk/da/persons/132516) from CfU at Aalborg University presented a paper titled: “Pedagogies of friendship in Danish educational intervention of migrant children integration from 1970s to 2010” she is working on alongside another panelist, namely Postdoc Manté Vertelyté from DPU at Aarhus University

Vertelyté’s presentation was titled ““Have we lost the Sense of Humor?!” Affective Senses of Racial Joking in Danish Schools”. Associate Professor Gro Hellesdatter Jacobsen of University of Southern Denmark discussed the Danish BA programme ‘Intercultural Education’ at University of Southern Denmark through a postmigration, decolonization and anti-racist perspective.

Iram Khawaja, Associate Professor at DPU Aarhus University, provided great insights into concrete antiracist teaching practices with her presentation: “Memory Work as Engaged Critical Pedagogy: Creating Collaborative Spaces for Reflections on Racialisation, Privilege and Whiteness”. The day was rounded off with presentations from Professor Dorthe Staunæs, DPU Aarhus University: “Hopeful things: Affective Interventions in Diversity Work in Education” and postdoc Tine Brøndum, University of Copenhagen: “Disruptions in time. Past, present and future in refugee narratives”.

We thank all attendees and presenters for an exciting seminar with fruitful discussions. We are especially thankful to Professor George Sefa Dei as he joined the internal CfU-Policy Futures Early Career Scholar seminar the following day (October 27). Here, graduate students and prospective scholars presented their projects and received valuable feedback on perspectives in their projects as well as had great discussions on how to advance their work and dissemination. This day ended with a guided tour about Copenhagen’s colonial history.