Ilaha Baghirova

Ilaha Baghirova is a doctoral researcher in Education at the University of Exeter and a Teaching Associate in the Department of Politics. Her research focuses on identity formation among adolescents from post-Soviet Muslim-majority country backgrounds in secondary schools in England, particularly those from Central Asian and Azerbaijani contexts. It examines how educational experiences, including curriculum, Religious Education, and wider school settings, shape identity formation by interacting with adolescents’ ways of knowing Muslimness, especially where Muslimness is lived as a cultural and social identity rather than as formal religious practice.

She holds an MA in Political Sciences and an MRes in Politics. Her work takes an interdisciplinary approach, drawing on education and political sociology to examine the relationship between social and personal identity, and how this relationship is negotiated through school experiences. A central focus of her research is how adolescents make sense of Muslimness in relation to other social categories, and how these understandings develop within school contexts.

Research website:

 Project Overview > Research in Education and Identity

Key words:

Identity formation; adolescents; post-Soviet backgrounds; Central Asia; Azerbaijan; non-visible Muslimness; cultural Muslimness; educational experiences; curriculum; Religious Education; social identity; personal identity; belonging.