Professor Joanna McIntyre announced as keynote speaker at BERA TEAN conference 2026

Professor Joanna McIntyre has been announced as a keynote speaker at the British Education Research Association Teacher Education Advancement Network (BERA TEAN) conference in 2026 which takes place on 20/21 May next year.

Abstract

Belonging as a Pedagogical Imperative: Teacher Education for Inclusive Futures

What does it take to create schools where every learner feels they truly belong? Teacher Education sits at the heart of this question, holding a transformative responsibility to shape inclusive futures. Yet, entrenched systems, dominant discourses, and institutional processes often reproduce exclusion, positioning some learners persistently at the margins. This keynote argues that belonging must be understood as foundational to socially just education and uses refugee education as a critical lens to explore how teacher education can dismantle systemic inequities through an intersectional approach. Belonging is far more than a superficial notion of ‘fitting in’; it is a dynamic, relational process that shapes identity, participation, and wellbeing. For refugee learners—and for many others at the intersections of race, gender, class, disability, and migration—belonging is frequently precarious, disrupted by structural inequalities, policy silences, and politicised narratives that frame diversity as divisive. These realities expose the fragility of educational systems and underscore the urgent need for teacher education to begin with those most excluded, rather than retrofitting inclusion into unchanged structures. Inclusive education for marginalised learners is complex, contested, and resistant to simplistic solutions. In this context, teacher education occupies a critical space—not only equipping beginning teachers with strategies but cultivating dispositions and professional identities grounded in social justice. This requires creating spaces for difficult conversations, fostering critical reflexivity, and developing a proactive stance that actively seeks out and challenges exclusionary practices within and beyond schools. The goal is to build educational environments as authentic spaces of belonging for all. Lived experiences illuminate systemic fragilities and offer a lens for reimagining education as a civic, democratic, and socially just endeavour. Ultimately, inclusion through belonging is not a static endpoint but a dynamic, intersectional process aimed at dismantling exclusion and advancing social justice for all learners.