Author: rachelbrooks

Call for papers: Eurostudents launch seminar

UNDERSTANDING THE CONTEMPORARY HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENT 

CALL FOR PAPERS FOR ONE-DAY SEMINAR

Wednesday, 21st September 2016, University of Surrey

Keynote speakers: Anna Mountford-Zimdars (King’s College London) and Michael Tomlinson (University of Southampton)

There is some evidence that, at least within countries with neo-liberal welfare regimes, students are constructed largely as consumers with contemporary policy texts. However, there is less consensus about whether or not students have taken up such an identity. Some scholars have assumed that this construction of student-as-consumer is having a profound effect on how students themselves approach HE. Indeed, Molesworth et al. (2009) contend that the inculcation of a consumer identity has brought about a more passive approach to learning, in which students place much more emphasis on their rights rather than their responsibilities, and on having a degree rather than being a learner. Others have, however, argued that, despite the increasing recourse to the language of economics in policy documents (in which students are positioned as consumers and universities as providers), in practice, the behaviour of students does not conform to this model (Dodds, 2011; Williams, 2013). Moreover, research has suggested that such identities may be differentiated by socio-economic characteristics, with only more affluent groups having the capacity to ‘shop around’, unencumbered by financial concerns or the ‘identity risks’ of moving away from home.

This one-day seminar will provide an opportunity to explore our current understandings of the contemporary higher education student, and the extent to which they are shaped by, for example, policymakers, the media, higher education staff and students themselves. Papers may focus on one or more of the following: the impact of tuition fees on understandings of what it means to be a student; students as consumers; media representations of students; students as political actors; policymakers’ understandings of students; and cross-national comparisons. However, other topics, relevant to the seminar theme, are also welcome.

Abstract Submission: Please send abstracts of up to 250 words by 13th May 2016 to Rachel Brooks at the University of Surrey: r.brooks@surrey.ac.uk. (There will be a small charge of £30 for attending the seminar.) You can book your place here.

Seminar Organisers: The seminar is organised by Rachel Brooks and colleagues in the Department of Sociology at the University of Surrey. It will help to launch the five-year EuroStudents research project based at Surrey, which investigates understandings of the higher education student across six different European countries.

downloadsurrey logo

What should education look like in the future?

‘Thinking the yet to be thought: Education for the future’

What should education look like in the future?

Traditional? Classical? Technology-focussed? Entirely optional? Schools in the Cloud? Global universities? Homeschooling? Entirely vocational? Predominantly online? Skills-based? Project-based? De-schooling? Freeschooling? Democratic? Radical? As it is now? What?

Our sixth ESRC seminar series event, to be held in Cardiff on 5thF2L1F2L2 July will focus on the question of what ‘education for the future’ should look like.

We recognise that there are a wide variety of opinions on this, and therefore, we offer participants the chance to pitch arguments and persuade the audience.

We are looking for pitches of up to 15 minutes. These can take any format, including formal presentation, soap-box style, demonstration, speeches, or anything else.  We welcome all views, including provocative ones. The aim of the pitches should be to engage the audience and to make us think differently about education. ‘Education’ can refer to schools, colleges, universities, adult education, informal learning, community work.

Please send an abstract/summary of up to 200 words. We will choose a good range of pitches from these so as to make for a lively event.

Abstracts to be sent to Max.Hope@hull.ac.uk or C.Montgomery@hull.ac.uk by Tuesday 31 May 2016.

Call for papers: Autonomous and alternative pedagogies for a socially just education

Special Issue of ‘Forum’: Freedom to Learn: autonomous and alternative pedagogies for a socially just education

Special issue editors: Dr Max Hope and Professor Catherine Montgomery, University of Hull

This proposal for a specialFreedom to Learn issue of FORUM Journal invites written contributions which explore the idea of a socially just education system focusing on how such a system might address inequalities in society. The issue will explore alternative and innovative examples and ideas from schools and universities across a range of countries (including Denmark and the USA) and consider whether these alternatives may illuminate approaches to reducing social and educational inequality.

Political, organisational and cultural pressures make it challenging for people to consider alternatives to the mainstream. The special issue will encourage its readers to reflect on their own educational assumptions, practices, and systems so as to be open to possibilities of doing things differently. In order to challenge current thinking as much as possible, the issue will invite contributors who are able to focus attention on radical alternatives in education. Both researchers and practitioners focusing on innovative and new ways of operating will be encouraged to contribute. These examples are not being showcased as ideal models to emulate but as a means of envisioning alternatives to the systems that dominate in society. By doing this, the issue will stimulate ideas and discussion around ways that have ‘yet to be thought’, to transform education for the future.

It is hoped that the alternative examples presented may offer an insight into how to improve education for all. Contributions will be expected to centre on the characteristics of a socially just education system and consider how new perspectives on social justice in education might enable social inequalities to be addressed, exploring these possibilities against the current performative and neo-liberal educational context of 2016. Thus articles which centre on the issue of enhancing social justice accompanied by a critical questioning of contemporary political narratives will be particularly welcomed.

The issue aims to be cross-sectoral, covering opinions and research around both pre-school, school and post 18 provision, drawing together a combination of contributions from both eminent international researchers and practitioners working in different fields. FORUM’s remit is 3-19 education, so the Special Issue will aim to include written pieces which focus on Early Years Foundation Stage, and pre-statutory provision as well as secondary and post-secondary education.  Formats will be flexible and papers will be welcomed from academics involved in research, school and university practitioners and policy makers and other community groups. The journal’s audience includes practitioners as well as academics and policy-makers and thus a broadly-accessible writing-style is welcomed.

FORUM has a long history dating back almost 60 years and during that time has been publishing topical and informed analysis – very often highly forthright and critical – of all aspects of United Kingdom government policy as it influences the education of children from primary through to higher education. FORUM vigorously campaigns for the universal provision of state-provided education. Contributions are not drawn only from the familiar sources in universities and colleges, but also in large numbers from teachers, writing of their own experiences in the classroom.

How to contribute

The special issue will consist of a combination of invited submissions and an open call for papers.

If you would like to contribute to the special issue you should send an abstract of no more than 300 words to c.montgomery@hull.ac.uk and Max.Hope@hull.ac.uk no later than Friday 15th April 2016. There will be an editorial review process and the timeline is as follows:

Submission of abstracts: deadline 15 April 2016

Submission of full papers: deadline 27 May 2016

Final draft (following editorial review): deadline 15 June 2016

Publication of special issue: Due Autumn 2016

Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives

22351108924_d963009ff0I have recently sent off the final manuscript for Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives, which will be published in the Routledge/SRHE series later on this year (probably mid-October). Thanks to all the contributing authors – putting the collection together was a very enjoyable process. I am hoping to put together a symposium at the SRHE annual conference in December to discuss some of the ideas contained in the book.

Here is the table of contents:

Chapter 1. Student Politics and Protest: an Introduction (Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey, UK)

Chapter 2. Campaigning for a Movement: Collective Identity and Student Solidarity in the 2010/11 UK Protests against Fees and Cuts (Alexander Hensby, University of Kent, UK)

Chapter 3. Student Struggles and Power Relations in Contemporary Universities. The Cases of Italy and England (Lorenzo Cini, European University Institute, Florence, Italy)

Chapter 4. Neoliberal Discourses and the Emergence of an Agentic Field: the Chilean Student Movement (Carolina Guzman Valenzuela, University of Chile, Chile)

Chapter 5. Affinities and Barricades. A Comparative Analysis of Student Organizing in Quebec and the USA (Rushdia Mehreen, Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Ryan Thomson, Raleigh, North Carolina, USA)

Chapter 6. Student Politics and the Value(s) of Public Welfare (Gritt Nielsen, Aarhus University, Denmark)

Chapter 7. The Politics of Higher Education Funding in the UK Student Movement 1996-2010 (Debbie McVitty, University of Bedfordshire, UK)

Chapter 8. Student Power in 21st Century Africa: The Character and Role of Student Organising (Thierry Luescher, University of the Free State, South Africa, and Manja Klemenčič, Harvard University, USA)

Chapter 9. Student Associations: The New Zealand Experience (Sylvia Nissen and Bronwyn Hayward, University of Canterbury, New Zealand)

Chapter 10. ‘If not now, then when? If not us, who?’ Understanding the Student Protest Movement in Hong Kong (Bruce Macfarlane, University of Southampton, UK)

Chapter 11. Student Mobilization during Turkey’s Gezi Resistance: From the Politics of Change to the Politics of Lifestyle (Begüm Uzun, University of Toronto, Canada)

Chapter 12. Network Formation in Student Political Worlds (Joseph Ibrahim, Leeds Beckett University, UK and Nick Crossley, University of Manchester, UK)

Chapter 13. Conclusion (Rachel Brooks, University of Surrey, UK)