Damian's current research activities have been focused on applying Critical Race Theory to explore how direct and indirect processes of securitization impact for Muslim communities and what the implications of this are for Muslims as stakeholders in the nation state.
Central to this focus is the relationship between nationhood, Britishness and Englishness and how this factors into the ways that securitization strategies play out for Muslims as stakeholders in national security. His previous research has focused on Muslim schools in the UK; in particular, his doctoral research focused on independent and state-funded Muslim schools and the ways in which educational policy and strategy impacts on the nature of faith schooling for Muslims.
More recently, Damian have drawn on Critical Race Theory to explore these impacts more substantively, and this has been manifested in his research monograph 'Muslim schools, Communities and Critical Race Theory: Faith Schooling in an Islamophobic Britain?' (Palgrave-Macmillan). The monograph is part of a wider body of scholarship which applies a Critical Race Theory framework to issues around the regulation, policing and controlling of Muslim interests in contemporary settings.
Damian has contributed to doctoral supervision across topics including Critical Race Theory and educational experiences for British African groups in compulsory education; social work and political activity; Higher Education and graduate employability.
Damian strongly welcome enquiries from candidates who wish to carry out PhD research in the following areas:
- Critical Race Theory and racism in contemporary social contexts
- Racism in institutional settings
- Community experiences around ‘race’, policing and the Criminal Justice System
- Securitisation and its impacts for British Muslims
- Whiteness and ‘crisis of Englishness’
- Islamophobia in institutional settings
- Schooling and stakeholdership in education for black British communities
- The construction of Islamic religious embodiment (i.e. religious dress) as ‘deviant’ in institutional settings
Books & Monographs:
Breen, D. (2018): Critical Race Theory, Muslim Schools and Communities: Faith Schooling in Islamophobic Britain? Palgrave-Macmillan
Journal articles:
Breen, D. & Meer, N (2019): ‘Securing whiteness?: Critical Race Theory (CRT) and the securitisation of Muslims’, Identities, (special issue) DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com//doi/full/10.1080/1070289x.2019.1589981
Breen, D. 2018. Critical Race Theory, policy rhetoric and outcomes: the case of Muslim schools in Britain. Race Ethnicity and Education, 21(1), pp.30-44, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2016.1248828
Breen, D. 2009: ‘Religious diversity, interethnic relations and the Catholic school: introducing the responsive approach to single faith schooling', British Journal of Religious Education, Vol. 31, No. 2 pp. 103-115, DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01416200802661076
Book Chapters:
Meer, N. & Breen, D. 2018: 'Muslim schools in Britain: between mobilisation and incorporation', in: M. Abu Bakar (Ed.) Rethinking Madrasah education in a globalised world, Routledge-Falmer
Breen, D. 2014: ‘British Muslim Schools: Institutional isomorphism and the transition from independent to voluntary-aided status’, In: R. Race (Ed.) 2013: Advancing ‘Race’ and Ethnicity within Education, Palgrave-Macmillan, pp.32-46
Breen, D. 2013: ‘State-funded Muslim schools and the public sphere: Stakeholders and legitimacy in the UK context’, In: J. Miller, K. O'Grady, U. McKenna, Religion in Education: Innovation in international research, Routledge-Falmer, pp.57-73
Breen, D. 2009: ‘A qualitative narrative of the transition from independent to voluntary aided status: a problem for the concept of the Muslim School', In: A. A. Veinguer, G. Dietz, D. Jozsa, and T. Knauth, Islam in Education in European Countries Pedagogical Concepts and Empirical Findings, Waxmann, pp.95-112
Breen, D. 2008: ‘Reflections on the positionality of the white, male non-Muslim researcher in Muslim primary schools: The realities of researching Muslim women', Papers of the Warwick SUMINER Group 4, July 2008, pp. 1928-115
Book reviews:
Breen, D. 2011: Book review of: ‘Faith in Education: A tribute to Terence McLaughlin’, International Journal of Lifelong Education, Vol. 30, No. 2, pp. 282-284
