Sara Ewing
Staff details
Position
Lecturer in Academic Literacies
Department
Centre for Academic Language and Literacies
s.ewing (@gold.ac.uk)
Sara was trained in teaching through the Washington Literacy Council and the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges from 2000-2002. She has a background in community-based organizations, especially education ‘from birth to grey’, with a particular interest in access for marginalized populations.
She has taught in the USA, Mexico and the UK, and has traveled through Europe, Central and South America, Africa and the Middle East. These experiences helped inform and motivate her academic interests in social, cultural and political issues, such as translation policy, immigration policy, citizenship testing and criminal justice policy reform.
Sara has a BA in Spanish and Political Science from Western Washington University, where she studied comparative politics, Spanish linguistics, feminism in 13th-16th century Spanish literature and identity in contemporary Mexican literature. She also has an MA in Applied Linguistics: Sociocultural Approaches from Goldsmiths. Her research was based on discourse and narrative analysis, and focused on the interplay between language, politics, society and the individual, particularly in creating and maintaining social values, structures and institutions.
Sara subsequently earned a Master of Research in Public Policy from Queen Mary, combining intensive training in qualitative and quantitative research methods with theories of the policy-making process. Her research focused on ideological and institutional influences on the articulation, formation and implementation of public policy.
Sara currently coordinates the ELC’s collaboration across Goldsmiths for enhancing academic development for Anglophone students. She is also engaged in a reflection on her own academic practice through the Postgraduate Certificate in the Management of Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, where her focus is on theoretical and practical discussions of power in the classroom, and the implications for student-centred learning.