Dr Sarah Cox

Professional biography

Sarah is a Research Fellow within the Faculty for Wellbeing, Education and Language Studies at The Open University in Scotland. She has a background in ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages), refugee integration, language education and multilingualism. Before coming to the OU, Sarah worked as a senior manager in the third sector where she led a range of ESOL and integration projects.

Sarah is interested in multilingual, decolonial, participatory approaches to research and language education. Her previous research has explored the gap between policy, practice and academic literature within language learning for refugees in Scotland. By working collaboratively with women who had recently arrived in Glasgow through the British Red Cross Family Reunion Integration Service, Sarah developed an ecological, multilingual approach to language learning which included participants' home languages and English.

She is currently Project Lead on the ESRC funded A Multilingual, Decolonial Approach to Adult Refugee and Migrant Language Education:Bridging Policy, Practice and Theory across the Devolved UK Nations (MDLE) Project. MDLE explores how language education for refugees and migrants in the devolved UK nations can become more multilingual and inclusive by developing an approach which includes refugees' and migrants' home languages, the UK's indigenous languages and English. 

Sarah was also a Co-investigator on the Interpreting in Migration Crises: A Case Study of Syrian Refugees in Turkey project between 2022 and 2024. She is also developing new research projects on language education for refugees and migrants.

Research interests

• Refugee integration
• ESOL
• Language ecologies
• Multilingualism
• Translanguaging
• Decolonial, participatory approaches
• Language policy