School of Politics and International Relations
 

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Helen Williams

Faculty APVC for Education and Student Experience, Professor of Political Science Education, Faculty of Social Sciences

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Biography

Helen Williams is the Faculty of Social Sciences Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and Student Experience and Professor of Political Science Education. She joined the School of Politics and International Relations in 2013. In 2021, Helen won a Lord Dearing Award as part of the Digital Learning Directors team and since 2016 has been a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Helen has been PI and Co-I on a number of externally funded projects relating to more inclusive curricula, quantitative research methods, enhancing student feedback, secondary data analysis, and technology-enhanced learning. Helen's teaching portfolio has included modules on culture and values, comparative politics, immigration and citizenship, designing political research, and the extreme right in established democracies. She is author of Statistics for Politics and International Relations using IBM SPSS Statistics (Sage), numerous peer reviewed journal articles on race, decolonisation, student feedback, gender, and citizenship.

Helen Williams has a BA (joint honours) in International Economics and Cultural Affairs and German from Valparaiso University (USA), with an integrated year at the University of Tuebingen and time at Moscow State University; and a MA Russian and East European Studies and PhD in Political Science and International Studies from the University of Birmingham.

Helen is a teaching and curriculum leadership specialist. She has taken a variety of education leadership roles, including Deputy and Director of Education and Student Experience, Deputy Faculty Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor for Education and Student Experience, and Faculty of Social Sciences Digital Learning Director. She is an external examiner in postgraduate research methods for the University of Glasgow. Her teaching and research specialisms are human migration and research methods.

She is fluent in English and German and academically fluent in French.

Her research interests are three-fold:

  • Immigration and nationality policy and public opinion
  • Decolonisation and diversification of political science and international relations
  • Higher education pedagogy and statistics education for non-specialists

She is an active member of the Higher Education Academy (Senior Fellow) and the Political Studies Association. She is also a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Pi Gamma Mu and Delta Phi Alpha.

She maintains a Twitter feed relating to her research interests.

Prof Williams has led extensively on teaching and learning initiatives, including a Higher Education Academy funded collaborative research grant exploring assessment feedback and a current interdisciplinary research project looking at the coverage of non-Western and non-white topics and scholars in politics and philosophy curricula in the UK.

Helen has led training at various institutions on a variety of themes relating to feedback, assessment, and equality, diversity and inclusion. She has been Deputy and Director of Teaching since 2016 and founded the School of Politics and IR's peer mentoring scheme.

Prof Williams is also passionate about teaching statistics and research methods to non-specialists, leading curriculum change to embed hands-on training at the undergraduate level. For this work, she was awarded the Political Studies Association Innovation in Teaching Politics Award in 2014. She was a co-investigator for the ESRC project 'Understanding Society Through Secondary Data Analysis'. She has recently published a book to help students learn statistics using SPSS embedded in the discipline of politics and IR.

Expertise Summary

  • Helen is available to supervise postgraduate research in the following areas:
  • Citizenship, immigration, asylum, immigrant experience, national identity
  • German and British politics and governance relating to migration
  • Political science education and pedagogy of research methods

Teaching Summary

Helen is enthusiastic about good teaching and learning practice. She is keen to implement innovative and evidence-based teaching improvements. She uses a variety of technology and teaching structures… read more

Research Summary

Helen's main research interests are migration studies and higher education pedagogy. Her current migration research examines shifts in public opinion about migration and rising nationalism around the… read more

Selected Publications

School of Politics and International Relations

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