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Dr Sara Young
Dr Sara Young profile picture
Appointment
  • Lecturer in Education
  • IOE - Curriculum, Pedagogy & Assessment
  • UCL Institute of Education
  • Lecturer (Teaching)
  • IOE - Culture, Communication & Media
  • UCL Institute of Education
Biography

I am a Lecturer at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society, based at the Dept. of Curriculum, Pedagogy and Assessment (CPA); I also contribute to modules within the Dept. of Culture, Communication and Media (CCM), and have worked at the Centre for Language and International Education (CLIE). I have also worked as a Researcher in collaboration with the UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies. Previously, I worked at Royal Holloway, University of London.

I received my PhD in Applied Linguistics from UCL, following my MRes in Educational and Social Research at IOE. Prior to this, I worked in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and FLE (French as a Foreign Language), and lived in Greece and Hungary for several years.

Research Summary

My work sits at the intersection of applied linguistics, migration, and education, where I examine the relationship between language and identity, especially in the context of contemporary Britain, both pre- and post-Brexit. I am interested in bi/multilingual practices and identity construction, and how these practices may be at play in different spaces. I am also involved in Polish migration research, and recently completed a Covid-19 related project which explored the impact of the lockdown on Polish Saturday schools in the UK, and the subsequent impact on heritage language learning. I specialise in narrative inquiry, exploring how narrative can be a means to construct identity, both for the individual and for nation states.

I am also involved with the ethical nature of research, including questions of researcher positionality, and the issues that arise when working with adolescents and young people.

Teaching Summary

Currently, I am Deputy Module Leader for the Dissertation Module on the MA Education, where I am also Module Ethics Coordinator. I am an Academic and Pastoral Tutor on the programme, where I also teach on the Understanding Research module, and on the Communicating Knowledge PGT module. I am also Module Leader for the UG module, as part of the BA Education Studies programme. 

On the MA Applied Linguistics/TESOL programme, I have been a Dissertation Supervisor since 2019; I also teach on the Research Methods and Language at Work modules. In previous years, I have worked on the MA English Education, and the pre-sessional courses for the Centre for Languages and International Education. I also taught on the pre-sessional courses at Royal Holloway, University of London.

As a subsidiary supervisor, I can support doctoral students whose research explores the following areas:

  • Identity studies
  • Language and migration
  • Complementary schooling
  • Narrative research


Academic Background
2020   Recognised by the HEA as a Fellow UCL
2019   ATQ02 - Recognised by the HEA as an Associate Fellow University College London
2018   Doctorat University College London
2014   Master of Research University College London
1994   Master of Arts Queen Mary College, University of London
1993   Bachelor of Arts (Honours) Royal Holloway
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