Dr Clare Choak

I am a youthologist and have been teaching and researching the lives of marginalised young people in urban areas for eighteen years, with a particular interest in age, class, gender, race and the ways in which they can intersect to create potential forms of oppression. Prior to this I worked as a journalist at BBC Sport, before being seconded to the post of BBC Sport Community Officer whereby I worked with disadvantaged young people. My first research project was a three year national ethnographic study which explored how youth practitioners build relationships with young people. I'm interested in the lives of young women who are on road, framed by a black feminist and a decolonial framework, which builds on Dr Anthony Gunter’s work around road culture, badness and the problematic gang agenda. Anthony and myself have recently completed an OpenLearn module rewrite around youth policy through a racial lens. I've also been involved in projects assessing OU teaching materials in terms of culturally responsive pedagogy, and am currently working on an EDI black scholarship project at the OU in addition to a research project about young black Britons and their experiences of Covid-19. I'm part of the Contemporary Youth Cultures and Transitions research group, more details can be found here: https://wels.open.ac.uk/research/cycat