Nina Westerholt

Nina Westerholt is a researcher and academic counselor at Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences, with a focus on international social work education, decolonial methodologies, and racism critique in academia. She coordinates the BASA (dual) study program and leads research projects on anti-racist teaching and curriculum reform. Her work spans collaborations with institutions in New Zealand, Fiji, Sweden, and Germany.

Her educational background includes a diploma in education and additional qualifications in German as a foreign language. She has conducted seminars on counseling in migration contexts, social work practice, and academic writing, with international partnerships in New Zealand and Fiji. Current projects include decolonizing social work curricula and implementing anti-discrimination strategies.

Westerholt is co-speaker of the German Association for Social Work's expert group on international social work and chairwoman of the university's Applied Social Sciences support association. She has presented at conferences on decolonial education, critical discourse analysis, and student diversity, with publications on study progress mentoring and curriculum development.

Her research emphasizes discourse analysis of international social work programs, exploring how colonial and racist power structures shape knowledge production. She advocates for pluriversalism in teaching and research, challenging traditional hierarchies in academic internationalization.