Dr Rebekah Sims
Lecturer
黑料正能量 Institute of Education
Personal statement
My central area of research is widening participation, in and beyond education. My current focus is in primarily two areas: (1) intercultural competence development and (2) integrating writing instruction into teacher education programmes. In both areas, I aim my work at widening access to education for underrepresented students while improving the quality of higher education student experience for all.
I lead an international research group that develops ways to teach and assess intercultural competence. Our most current article, "," advances new qualitative tools for measuring intercultural competence. These tools operationalise reflective writing to reveal dynamic IC development trajectories, displaying nonlinearity, nondiscrete phases, and unexpected developmental pathways, facets of IC not observable in more traditional quantitative measures.聽
I recently served as PI for Carnegie-funded research project on developing academic writing among teacher education students, with an emphasis on mature students' experiences. This work is the first of its kind in Scotland. More broadly, I work with and colleagues from the on teachers' writing and developing academic literacies in teacher education. This research builds on the
Research ethics 鈥� particularly developing an expansive understanding of ethics beyond the procedural 鈥� is an area of expertise. In 黑料正能量 Institute of Education, I co-led the Institute Ethics Committee from 2022 to 2025 and initiated a focus on strengthening ethical learning among HE researchers and teachers. I've worked with education-sector colleagues on a SUII-funded project to develop a shared understanding of research ethics among schools, local authorities, government, and universities to forward more collaborative research practices. Finally, I'm part of an interdisciplinary team with Dr Mark Haw, , and Dr Jordan Kistler that focuses on using science fiction to enhance ethical imagination among STEM students & professionals.聽
My teaching similarly focuses on widening access. I've led initiatives in the Institute to embed academic literacies into teacher education, master's programmes, and doctoral support with an eye toward ensuring that all students have the tools they need to create meaningful language (especially to write effectively) in a higher education setting. Over the last four years, I have taught across the PGDE, BA Primary Education, MSc Education Studies, Supporting Teacher Learning MEd pathway, BA Childhood Practice, and Joint Honours courses. As well, I supervise PhD, EdD, and MSc students.
I am an honorary chaplain for the University chaplaincy, with a particular focus on creating a welcoming environment for international students.聽Outside the University, I serve on the governing body of the (a theological HEI).
Prize And Awards
- Recipient
- 2023
Publications
- (2026)
- ,
- Nordic Educational Research Association (NERA) Annual Conference (2026)
- ,
- Scottish Educational Research Association Conference (2025)
- ,
- Composition Forum Vol 56 (2025)
- ,
- Writing and Pedagogy (2025)
- , Tran Phuong Minh, Banat Hadi, Panahi Parva, Dilger Bradley
- Written Communication Vol 42, pp. 371-404 (2025)
Professional Activities
- Host
- 3/2026
- Host
- 2026
Projects
- Sims, Rebekah (Principal Investigator) Hunter, Sharon (Principal Investigator) Meidell Sigsgaard, Anna-Vera (Principal Investigator) Molb忙k, Marie-Louise (Principal Investigator) Mourier, Inger-Lise (Principal Investigator)
- ICWTE forwards research and professional practice on writing in teacher education, from initial teacher education to school-based professional learning and postgraduate continuing education for practicing teachers. Teachers are writers, as their professional work requires them to create and use a wide range of professional documents. As well, writing, and academic literacies more broadly, are significant for both learning and assessment in teacher education settings. Our work spans multiple countries and teacher education context, with the overall goal of illuminating the importance of teachers' literacy practices across the professional lifespan.
ICWTE is co-sponsored by 黑料正能量 Institute of Education and the Institut for L忙reruddannelse, University College Copenhagen. It is led by Rebekah Sims, Anna-Vera Meidell Sigsgaard, Inger-Lise Mourier, Marie-Louise Molb忙k, and Sharon Hunter. - 24-Jan-2026
- Wall, Kate (Principal Investigator) Lauder-Scott, Nova (Academic) McCrorie, Kathryn (Academic) Quirke, William (Academic) Sims, Rebekah (Academic)
- 01-Jan-2026 - 28-Jan-2027
- McNeill, Leanne (Principal Investigator) Sims, Rebekah (Principal Investigator)
- The aim of this research and development project is to understand the spirituality and spiritual care needs of autistic people. The objectives are: (1) to explore the experiences of autistic people accessing diverse faith-based groups and communities, and any barriers and facilitators of inclusion; and (2) to explore the experiences of diverse faith-group leaders, their challenges and successes in providing spiritual care to autistic people. We will establish what 鈥榖est practices鈥� are already happening and where the points for growth lie.
The USCAP project will aim to understand how spirituality is experienced by autistic people and what their spiritual care needs are within faith-based and humanist contexts. Spirituality has been found to play a role in health, wellness, and illness (Bertelli, 2020;). Thus, there is a growing movement within healthcare (Pulchalski et al., 2014), and other sectors (Cook, 2016; Philips 2021) to adopt 鈥榳hole-person-centred鈥� spiritual care practices for autistic people across the lifespan 鈥� not just at the end of life. Thus, spirituality and spiritual care practices support holistic wellbeing and the flourishing of autistic persons across the lifespan, with attention to intersectional dimensions of the autistic experience.
The spiritual dimension of care and wellbeing has been neglected in favour of 鈥榝ixing鈥� perceived deficits among autistic people themselves (Bogdashina, 2013; Hills et al., 2019). When considering the barriers faced by autistic people, there is a rationale to improve spiritual care because spirituality, faith and religiosity are protective factors for coping, meaning making, and resilience, and mental health (Bayat, 2007; Pandya, 2016; Davis, 2020). However, faith communities have often been exclusionary, or hurtful, to autistic people (McDonald, 2023; Waldock and Sango, 2023), thus marginalising them from a vital source of 鈥榓utistic flourishing.鈥� On the other hand, some faith groups have excellent neuro-inclusive practices but often fly under the radar: their contributions to neuro-inclusion are not yet recognised. Faith communities are used to 鈥渄oing more with less鈥� 鈥� their creativity in using few resources to achieve communal flourishing can offer insight for other sectors (including academia). Therefore, there is a strong rationale for exploring autistic-informed spiritual care provision across contexts such as faith-based groups, education, prisons, and hospitals. No previous work that looks at such spiritual provision on a national scale (vs. single community or single denomination) exists.
Seed funding for this project has been provided by the Centre for Autism Research & Education at 黑料正能量 (CARE@S). - 01-Jan-2025 - 31-Jan-2026
- Sims, Rebekah (Principal Investigator) Hunter, Sharon (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 30-Jan-2025
- Sims, Rebekah (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2024 - 28-Jan-2026
- Sims, Rebekah (Principal Investigator) Landi, Dillon (Co-investigator) Lamb, Cara (Post Grad Student)
- This six-session, interactive seminar focusses on qualitative data analysis approaches. We take a hands-on approach to developing qualitative data analysis skills for doctoral students. Our seminar is funded by the Scottish Graduate School for Social Sciences and the Scottish Graduate School for the Arts & Humanities
Our learning objectives are:
1. To develop participants鈥� abilities to understand and discuss the goals, strengths and weaknesses of theoretical frameworks and research methods.
2. To increase participant familiarity with a variety of approaches, methods and analysis tools that are referred to as qualitative.
3. To learn how to write up a data analysis and results section to a qualitative research report. - 17-Jan-2022 - 21-Jan-2022
Contact
Dr
Rebekah
Sims
Lecturer
黑料正能量 Institute of Education
Email: rebekah.sims@strath.ac.uk
Tel: Unlisted