Dr. Christina Fashanu PhD MA MTeach
Senior Lecturer in Early Childhood
Summary
Christina is a senior lecturer in Early Childhood with research interests in linguistic and cultural diversity and social justice in Early Years educational settings. Christina is particularly interested in participatory methodologies and the ethical challenges of conducting research with young children.
About
Christina's PhD looked at the communicative practices of children in a super-diverse classroom, and how these clashed with the narrow expectations of the EYFS. Christina is currently has an ECR fellowship to conduct research with young asylum-seeking and refugee children. The aim of the project is to uncover the barriers these children faced in accessing education throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and how schools, Early Years providers and charitable organisations have overcome these challenges.
Teaching
Sheffield Institute of Education
College of Social Sciences and Arts
Early Childhood
Early Childhood Studies
Research
Challenges and successes relating to supporting access to education for young asylum seeking and refugee children in Sheffield throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, ECR fellowship project (2021/22)
Publications
Journal articles
Tatham-Fashanu, C. (2021). A third space pedagogy: embracing complexity in a super-diverse, early childhood education setting. Pedagogy, Culture & Society. http://doi.org/10.1080/14681366.2021.1952295
Fashanu, C., Wood, E., & Payne, M. (2019). Multilingual communication under the radar: how multilingual children challenge the dominant monolingual discourse in a super-diverse, Early Years educational setting in England. English in Education, 54 (1), 93-112. http://doi.org/10.1080/04250494.2019.1688657
Other activities
Christina runs the 'Ethics of Research with Children and Young People' research cluster- an interdisciplinary group with participants at all levels of academia, from post-grad to professor who share a common interest in overcoming the ethical challenges presented by research with children and young people.
The research cluster word press site can be found here: https://research.shu.ac.uk/ercyp/
Postgraduate supervision
Christina currently supervises a student in CRESR who is studying the impacts of energy poverty on children, incorporating the children's perspectives.