Projects per year
Personal profile
Biography
Nish is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, where she teaches units in Visual Art and Design Education for secondary students and Creative Arts Education for primary pre-service teachers. She has extensive international experience in art education, curriculum development, and educational policy.
As a practising artist, she integrates her roles as artist, researcher, and teacher (a/r/t). Her research spans various areas, including art-based research, teacher education, and the exploration of culture and identity through arts-based methodologies. She applies these approaches across diverse fields to understand how cultural diversity can be better supported in educational settings. Her current research focuses on culturally responsive pedagogies aimed at fostering inclusion and supporting cultural diversity within education.
Her other key research interests include examining issues of race, gender, colour, and class through a postcolonial feminist lens. She explores themes such as postcoloniality, patriarchal legacies, diasporic heritages, migration transitions, and the identity negotiation of transnational women of colour.
She is highly skilled in qualitative research methodologies, particularly autoethnography, narrative research, and visual research methods.
Research interests
- Culturally responsive pedagogies, decolonial lenses to education
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Gendered lenses of identity politics: transnational women of colour, women artists, migrant women, international students.
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Migration and its impact on migrant communities from both educational and social dimensions
Monash teaching commitment
- EDF5179 - Visual art and design education in the secondary years 1A
- EDF4093 - Primary creative arts
- EDF2069 - Primary creative arts
- EDF5849 - Early childhood and primary arts
Expertise related to UN Sustainable Development Goals
In 2015, UN member states agreed to 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure prosperity for all. This person’s work contributes towards the following SDG(s):
Education/Academic qualification
Doctor of Philosophy, Deakin University
Research area keywords
- Sociology, history, and philosophy of education
- Art Education
- creative art pedagogies
- intercultural understanding
- cross-cultural teaching and learning
- women artists and teachers as artists
- visual research methods
- art-based research pedagogy and methods
- Educating for diversity and inclusion
- Transforming teaching and learning
- Transnational and migration studies
- integrative abilities of the arts
- culturally responsive pedagogies
- postcolonial feminist lenses
Collaborations and top research areas from the last five years
Projects
- 2 Finished
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Teaching Arts: The Need for Artistic and Pedagogical Balance
Ludecke, M. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Jenkins, L. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Crawford, R. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Belford, N. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Burke, G. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & Ammermann, M. (Chief Investigator (CI))
1/03/24 → 30/11/24
Project: Research
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Numeracy across the curriculum research project
Kidman, G. (Primary Chief Investigator (PCI)), Hall, J. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Forgasz, H. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Burke, G. (Chief Investigator (CI)), Belford, N. (Chief Investigator (CI)) & Leahy, D. (Chief Investigator (CI))
20/04/20 → 26/06/20
Project: Research
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Culturally Responsive Teaching with pre-service teachers and the challenges to action Culturally Responsive Pedagogies in an Australian education context
Belford, N., 2025, The Layered Landscape of Higher Education: Capturing Curriculum, Diversity, and Cultures of Learning in Australia. Kumar, M., Pattanayak, S. & Belford, N. (eds.). 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge, p. 118-133 16 p. (Routledge Research in Higher Education).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter (Book) › Research › peer-review
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Hope theory as resistance: narratives of South Asian scholars in Australian academia
Sum, N., Lahiri-Roy, R. & Belford, N., 27 Jan 2025, In: Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. 44, 1, p. 26-40 15 p.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › Research › peer-review
6 Citations (Scopus) -
Introduction: Deliberation
Kumar, M., Pattanayak, S. & Belford, N., 2025, The Layered Landscape of Higher Education: Capturing Curriculum, Diversity, and Cultures of Learning in Australia. Kumar, M., Pattanayak, S. & Belford, N. (eds.). 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge, p. 1-25 25 p. (Routledge Research in Higher Education).Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Foreword / Postscript › Other › peer-review
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The Layered Landscape of Higher Education: Capturing Curriculum, Diversity, and Cultures of Learning in Australia
Kumar, M., Pattanayak, S. & Belford, N., 2025, 1st ed. Abingdon UK: Routledge. 286 p. (Routledge Research in Higher Education)Research output: Book/Report › Edited Book › peer-review
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Culturally responsive pedagogies and culturally responsive teaching: a reflexive discussion on initial teacher education within arts disciplines
Belford, N. & Crawford, R., 2024.Research output: Contribution to conference › Abstract › peer-review
Open Access
Prizes
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ECR grant through the Dean’s ECR fund 2017
Belford, N. (Recipient), 4 Feb 2017
Prize: Other distinction
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Teacher Education, Language, Arts and Professional Learning Funding opportunities for Scholarship of Teaching and Learning projects 2018
Belford, N. (Recipient), 25 Jun 2018
Prize: Prize (including medals and awards)