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Omar Khan

@omaromalleykhan.bsky.social
3K followers 4.5K following 3.7K posts

CEO of @taso.org.uk, Chair of Trust for London, Executive Committee of Political Studies Association. The usual disclaimers.

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Reposted by Omar Khan
Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 20h
Delighted that @taso.org.uk has published this piece by Sir Patrick Vernon. From representation and progression in academia to the recognition of community scholarship, he asks higher education to think more deeply about whose knowledge counts, whose voices are heard and who is supported to belong
linkedin.com
Beyond recognition: We must nurture and protect Black knowledge
By Professor Sir Patrick Vernon OBE FrHistS This Black History Month’s theme is “Honouring Our Communities“. Every Black History Month, we rightly celebrate the achievements of Black people in Britain...
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 20h
Delighted that @taso.org.uk has published this piece by Sir Patrick Vernon. From representation and progression in academia to the recognition of community scholarship, he asks higher education to think more deeply about whose knowledge counts, whose voices are heard and who is supported to belong
linkedin.com
Beyond recognition: We must nurture and protect Black knowledge
By Professor Sir Patrick Vernon OBE FrHistS This Black History Month’s theme is “Honouring Our Communities“. Every Black History Month, we rightly celebrate the achievements of Black people in Britain...
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 21h
Very pleased to see this - thanks for sharing
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
In 1970, the total fertility rate in Bangladesh was nearly 7. Today it's just over 2 Muslim countries below the 'replclacement rate' include Tunisia, Iran, Malaysia, Indonesia, Bahrain, Turkey This is also observable in UK minority populations, where change since 1970-80s has been dramatic
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Reposted by Omar Khan
Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 07/10/2026
This is very cool - the lifting of postwar sugar rationing in 1953 created a natural experiment in the impacts of sugar consumption. Good piece which doesn’t overclaim but shows there is an emerging associative evidence base coming from research in this area www.theguardian.com/society/2026...
theguardian.com
The generation raised on sugar rations – and what their health reveals 70 years later
From blood pressure to ageing, research suggests the first 1,000 days of sugar exposure could leave a decades-long mark on health
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I assumed that word was mere adornment
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
40% of children in Luton are growing up in poverty, among the highest rates in the country www.health.org.uk/resources-an...
health.org.uk
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
Genuinely, it wasn't a plug for us. WWC are an interesting case for your argument, given their funding too
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
You could include what works centres?
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
It's not your point or view but 'no one does x' hyberbole is so grrr. I literally paused at such stops twice today maybe I don't really exist or Im lying or something something I just can't agree we shd accept as a verbal tick/default political comms that ppl knowingly say obviously false things
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
I wrote a chapter in my doctorate on why group based solidarity was under theorised and why nationalism being a default justified version obscured the controversial nature of in group partiality and I like philosophy but oh boy yikes red flag to people who try to run this argument in the real world
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Reposted by Omar Khan
Yair Wallach @yairwallach.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
What people fail to understand is also that Zionism was not just a plan/ideology for Jews in Palestine, it was also a vision for Jewish *diasporic* identity. Much of Zionist activity has always taken place outside Palestine/Israel and was about communal identity and politics. Hence the attachment.
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
'We measure AI-generated writing in the dissertations of a near-census of US STEM PhD graduates from 2019 to 2026 and link graduates to their subsequent employment. AI writing is absent before 2023, present in 29% of dissertations filed in 2026, and rapidly growing' www.nber.org/papers/w35859
nber.org
How Heavily Are PhD Students Offloading Their Scientific Writing to AI? Evidence from US STEM PhD Dissertations
Founded in 1920, the NBER is a private, non-profit, non-partisan organization dedicated to conducting economic research and to disseminating research findings among academics, public policy makers, an...
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Baffled how and what people post on LinkedIn I guess it's because neither x nor here is their main social output
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
'Racism is about identity and not about poverty' makes sense if your brain is steeped on the internet and/or youve never met the humans you purport to understand in person
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
evidence determines which questions are asked, how resources are allocated & assessed. One upshot is that we need more STEM PhDs from disadvantaged backgrounds not just as a matter of fairness/social mobility for researchers, but for better addressing issues of inequality & inefficiency in society
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
those of us working in evaluation more broadly, whether in higher education like TASO, or other 'what works centres', or in international development. Even more fundamentally, statistical and quantitative expertise guides the decisions of the Treasury and finance ministries around the world; quant
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Important and consequential research from the Martingale Foundation on STEM PhDs: 'The progression gap in STEM is steeper than almost any other subject area, with the biggest progression gaps in maths and statistics, physics and chemistry' The gap in maths and stats has major implications for...
martingale.foundation
The Path to PhD - Martingale Foundation
report Socioeconomic Background and Barriers to STEM Postgraduate Study October 2026 SUPPORTED BY About the Report Martingale and partners have carried out the largest piece of research ever into the ...
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I'm not sure those on speaking panels on national identity today have that kind of intellectual heft?
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Tho conversely: I attended the launch of a report where then Home Secretary Jack Straw was flanked on a panel of Bhikhu Parekh and Stuart Hall
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
Adam Swift's 'Introduction to Political Philosophy' included the words 'for students and politicians' because a new Labour politician apparently contacted Isaiah Berlin and invited him to discuss why Berlin was wrong about liberty
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
Of course this is a particularly sore or angering spot for white supremacists. They deploy terms such as 'race traitor' and worse, but no amount of angry vitriol can hide the obvious empirical and moral falsity of their world view
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
One reason why white nationalists get things wrong: most white people don't agree with them. They don't agree they share an exclusive white supremacist identity, and they don't agree that ethnic minorities aren't good neighbours, friends, colleagues and indeed family members - as their actions show
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Note that the Asian and Black proportion of the population decreased between the 2011 and 2021 census, tho I appreciate when it comes to London, race and migration evidence and rationality don't always come into it
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
White people are moving into Newham, not out of it: the white population increased from 29.0% in the 2011 Census to 30.8% in 2021 This also indicates there isn't a tipping point in London below which white people won't move - plenty want to live in a diverse area (the borough grew by 43,000)
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Unless I've misread this, in this scenario there would be more Green MPs representing the South West and Yorkshire and Humber than there would be in London (1)
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If you want to read someone being really strident and controversial about Englishness, there's always this 325 year old satire www.gutenberg.org/files/30159/...
gutenberg.org
The Project Gutenberg eBook of The True-Born Englishman, by Daniel Defoe.
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Which is just to say evidence alone is unlikely to settle things here or anywhere else Shared empathy and effective stories to explain the mechanism are more likely to convince people that discrimination could be driving unequal outcomes
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
If institution or policy X is viewed discriminatory against group Y, raw gaps alone are not enough to prove it, tho they should be taken seriously as indicating a possible inefficiency as well as unfairness Obviously this is all very charged and contested publicly....
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Take eg sex or race discrimination There is a strongly evidenced research base (including historical institutional and legal inequalities going back decades) for discrimination against women and Black people, while there is less such evidence of discrimination against men and white people
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Hence the focus on methods that can identify causality not just correlation, including quasi- experimental and the longstanding CV studies testing for discrimination Perhaps less often discussed is the need for a mechanism or explanation of why discrimination is plausbile/likely
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Evidence seems the clear answer. But 'raw' statistical gaps are not always or even often evidence enough Testing whether some other factor explains the gap is a known statistical technique Tho here too interpretation is tricky. Correlations, reverse causality, etc are well known challenges
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Without taking a view on the specifics of the football drinking case, the term 'discrimination' is applied in an increasingly wide range of cases, even as the term is challenged as an explanation in areas where it has been more typically applied How to determine whether an unequal outcome is fair?
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
For the hundredth time I ask What practices, cultural activities, values, or identities in Englishness must *by definition* exclude Black and Asian people?
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Reposted by Omar Khan
Blue Note Records @bluenoterecords.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
John Coltrane was born 100 years ago today September 23, 1926. Trane was still near the start of his remarkable creative journey when he went into Rudy Van Gelder’s living room studio on September 15, 1957 and recorded his first great masterpiece: “Blue Train.” bluenote.lnk.to/JohnColtrane...
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Reposted by Omar Khan
Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
So pleased that the Cabinet Office has announced funding for @taso.org.uk 's work with the Exeter Exam Centre & KCL (our evaluation partner) on addressing access to GCSE exams, a major driver for addressing NEETs as well as access to higher education Further details: taso.org.uk/news-blog/ta...
taso.org.uk
TASO awarded funding to evaluate the use of a GCSE exam centre to reduce NEET rates - TASO
TASO awarded funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund to evaluate a GCSE exam centre set up by the University of Exeter for children not in school.
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Genuinely weird how much Chris Mason talks about himself in his reporting
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
All is forgiven
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
So pleased that the Cabinet Office has announced funding for @taso.org.uk 's work with the Exeter Exam Centre & KCL (our evaluation partner) on addressing access to GCSE exams, a major driver for addressing NEETs as well as access to higher education Further details: taso.org.uk/news-blog/ta...
taso.org.uk
TASO awarded funding to evaluate the use of a GCSE exam centre to reduce NEET rates - TASO
TASO awarded funding from the Evaluation Accelerator Fund to evaluate a GCSE exam centre set up by the University of Exeter for children not in school.
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Absolutely. Forgetting that empire was a polity with differentiated rights that needed 'repatriating' post decolonisation is one reason the Windrush injustice occurred - people forgot how the British state evolved/retreated and what that meant for ex UK and colony citizens
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
And while there are nested concepts here, it does feel Britishness has long had a more flexible meaning that (partly) why explains it became more affirmatively multi-ethnic before Englishness (or Scottishness) did
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I generally agree with you (3) I might addthat Britishness anyway has different meanings or valences. When a Black or Asian British person says 'I am British' that obviously means something different from a Northern Irish or Scottish person saying so - it's not just academics debating concepts...
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Reposted by Omar Khan
History of Parliament @histparl.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
David Olusoga's new series Finding Britain's Slave Traders airs tonight at 9pm. In anticipation, we are resharing an article from Dr Michael Taylor on the West India Interest, the pro-slavery lobby in Parliament, where many members had a vested interest in the continuation of slavery.
historyofparliament.com
The West India Interest and the Parliamentary Defence of Slavery, 1823-33
This blog, which explores the parliamentary context of the abolition of slavery, is based on Michael’s full-length seminar paper, ‘The West India Interest and Colonial Slavery in Parliament,…
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
To determine how class impacts life outcomes such as access to (higher or further) education, employment and health, and how it interacts with other factors, we need more data sources to gather NS-SEC data
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Having moved to the UK in 1996 I try not to sigh when questioned about when I moved here from people born (more than a decade) after that date
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It's (at least) 20 years since I first supported the idea of social class as a 'protected' characteristic under equality law One major challenge is not just choosing the right measure, but the fact that most preferred measures (eg NS-SEC) is not collected in many datasets and surveys
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
I wonder would he say: Gordon Brown is English? I appreciate what you indicate is his affirmation of equality under the law but agree that is not tied to or justified by national identity
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
No. Just 'some objecting to some comments' but otherwise she is apparently a figure representing a more consensual time on sexual and social mores (which I suppose means the anti-gay march in 2013 didn't happen?)
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
There was a short throwaway on 'some objecting' to comments on immigration, but framed as a minor footnote to a story that was fundamentally about a simpler more consensual time on social and sexual attitudes (which, as someone in Paris during anti-gay marches just over a decade ago, rang oddly)
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Omar Khan @omaromalleykhan.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
BBC coverage of Bardot's auction including her 'nightie' and the Kama Sutra was (I think?) meant to be light apolitical relief following the coverage of AfD election victories but I can't be the only one that found the successive updates jarring, not bc of the contrast but bc of unmade comparisons
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