Postdoctoral Research Associate in West African Arts Education

King’s College London seeks to appoint a research fellow for a period of 36 months (February 2025 to January 2028). We are looking for an outstanding and highly motivated postdoctoral researcher with experience of working on the history and/ or sociology of education in Africa, who would join a team on LITAID, a project funded by a UKRI Frontier Research Guarantee Grant.

LITAID – Decolonization, Appropriation and the Materials of Literature in Africa and its Diaspora – addresses questions about cultural production, arts education and literary materials. It focuses on the role of the arts in decolonization, and looks especially at Ghanaian cultural production, considering its transnational dimensions from the perspective of local artists and institutions as well as a range of visitors from abroad, who came seeking decolonial resources for their own communities. 

The research fellow will be chiefly responsible for one of the project’s six strands, a study of Ghanaian arts and literary education between 1946 and 1962. The purpose of this strand is to ascertain how the Ghanaian state and Ghanaian educators and artists understood the role of the arts and art education during the period of decolonization. The postholder will spend extended periods conducting archival research in Britain and Ghana and undertaking fieldwork-based case studies of particular educational institutions in Ghana.   

The postholder, who will work independently but under the supervision of the principal investigator. The postholder will be responsible for identifying, surveying and analyzing relevant archival materials; establishing the relationship between policies and their implementation, both before and after Ghanaian independence; and undertaking case studies of specific primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions, based on fieldwork. The postholder will also contribute to project outputs (conference papers, journal articles and a monograph proposal), participate in regular team-meetings, and will assist in the organization and management of events.

This is a full-time post (35 hours per week), and you will be offered a fixed term contract until 31/01/2028.

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills and experience:

Essential criteria

1. PhD qualified in relevant subject area (or pending results)
2. Knowledge of relevant approaches to history and/or sociology of education.
3. Experience of archival research and ability to manage, organize and analyze large volumes of archival material.
4. Familiarity with one or more of Ghana’s languages.
5. Ability to use initiative to solve problems arising in the research context.
6. Ability to organize time, work to meet deadlines, manage competing priorities and complete research outputs.
7. Ability to work closely with other researchers.

Desirable criteria

1. Experience of archival and/or field-based research in West Africa.
2. Experience of a collaborative research environment.
3. Knowledge and experience of questionnaire design.
4. Knowledge of and interest in arts or literary education.
5. Knowledge of and interest and theories of decolonization.

Full details of the role and the skills, knowledge and experience required can be found in the Job Description document, provided at the bottom of the next page after you click “Apply”. This document will provide information of what criteria will be assessed at each stage of the recruitment process.

* Please note that this is a PhD level role but candidates who have submitted their thesis and are awaiting award of their PhDs will be considered. In these circumstances the appointment will be made at Grade 5, spine point 30 with the title of Research Assistant.

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