Rate My Professor Vegneskumar Maniam

Dr. Vegneskumar Maniam is a Senior Lecturer in Contextual Studies in the School of Education at the University of New England, Armidale, Australia. He holds a PhD in Sociology of Education and a Master's of Education from the University of Adelaide. Appointed to his position at UNE since 2015, he contributes to teaching and research within the Faculty of Humanities, Arts, Social Sciences and Education.

Maniam's research centers on sociology of education, encompassing humanistic sociology, memoir methods in educational research, southern theory for alternative knowledges, sources of English language anxiety, cognitive load in cross-cultural mathematics learning, and cultural identity through sports participation and outdoor recreational activities. His publications include 'Doing southern theory: Towards alternative knowledges and knowledge practices in/for education' (2016, with K. Takayama, S. Heimans, R. Amazan), 'A systematic review of sources of English language anxiety' (2023, with I. Weerakoon, Z. Zhang), 'Secondary school students’ participation in sports and their parents’ level of support: A qualitative study' (2017), 'A Contrastive Genre-Based Study of English and Indonesian RAIs in the History Discipline' (2024, with Z. Adnan), 'An Islamic voice for openness and human development in education: the relevance of Ibn Khaldun's ideas to Australian teacher education programs today' (2016), 'Participation in outdoor recreational activities and cultural identity in Australia: An exploratory qualitative study' (2020, with R. Brown), 'Sports Participation and Cultural Identity in the Experience of Young People' (2014), and 'The Memoir Method in Educational Research From an Australian Perspective' (2014). Recent works cover 'Tamil Schools in the Federated Malay States under British Colonial Rule 1895-1941' (2024) and 'Kartini, Online Media, and the Politics of the Jokowi Era' (2025, with J. Ahlstrand). He has supervised theses on adult literacy campaigns, ESL learning barriers, and madrassa student opportunities. His scholarship, cited over 180 times on Google Scholar, advances culturally responsive pedagogies and southern epistemologies in education.