The Loneliness Connects Us youth co-research was featured on Swedish TV @SVT station’s Correspondents series. As the programme billed it:
The epidemic of loneliness. The lack of human contacts is as dangerous as high blood pressure or extreme overweight. What can Sweden learn from a small British city, where it managed to stop the epidemic? Program leader: Lena Scherman and Bengt Norborg. Part 10 of 10.
Academics from ESRI presented their research last month at the 2018 AERA conference in New York. The overall theme of the conference was ‘The Dreams, Possibilities, and Necessity of Public Education’, and with over 17,000 attendees, the annual conference is organised around a number of Divisions, Sections and Special Interest Groups (SIGs).
David Menendez Alvarez-Hevia and Karen Pashby presented (on behalf of co-authors Edda Sant and Jane McDonnell) “Agonistic Controversial” Issues as a Pedagogy for Global Citizenship Education“, within the Democratic Citizenship and Education Special Interest Group. The paper described findings of research workshops aimed to generate an agonistic space in which ideas on global citizenship were discussed without seeking consensus. Karen Pashby also presented (on behalf of co-author Louise Sund of Malardalen University) ‘Rethinking Teaching Sustainability and Global Ethics for U.N. Sustainable Development Goal Target 4.7: Engaging Swedish Upper Secondary Teachers’.
Liz de Freitas presented a paper ‘Dyscalculia, neuroscience and time: Rethinking the biopolitics of the body’ (on behalf of co-author Nathalie Sinclair), within the Disability Studies in Education SIG. David Rousell presented three papers in the Environmental Education SIG. His papers were titled Creatures of Experience: Towards an ecological aesthetics of childhood in an age of climate change (w/ Amy Cutter-Mackenzie). Ecological Aesthetics: New spaces, directions, and potentials (w/ Dilafruz Williams); and The ChildhoodNature Companion: Art, writing and research by children and young people (w/ Joshua Russell).
Sarah Truman presented in four sessions across various Special Interest Groups including: ‘Inhuman Literacies’ in Division B; ‘Racial Ontologies and the New Materialisms’ in the Qualitative Research SIG; ‘Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world’ in the Qualitative Research SIG; and ‘Public Pedagogies and the Arts’ in the Arts-Based Educational Research SIG. (Sarah’s attendance at AERA was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and WalkingLab.) Also as part of the symposium ‘Walking methodologies in a more-than-human world‘, Michael Gallagher presented ‘Sound beyond meaning: listening walks as pedagogy‘ on behalf of my co-authors Jonathan Prior, Martin Needham and Rachel Holmes.
Kate Pahl convened a symposium on ‘Rethinking Literacy Ontologies Through the Eyes of Participants, Objects, and Sites: Public Pedagogies of Possibility’. This was part of the Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group. As part of this symposium. Kate Pahl and Hugh Escott gave a paper on ‘Prescriptivism and Inhuman Literacies: Rethinking Language and Schooling for Public Pedagogies’. Christina MacRae also presented in this panel her paper called ‘Colliding bodies and vibrant objects’, uses Harraway’s notion of ‘tentacular’ thinking to explore ‘object conflict’ in a class of two-year olds. Finally, also in this symposium Abigail Hackett and Pauliina Rautio presented ‘Corresponding with the world as early childhood literacy ontology’, in which they offered a new orientation for early childhood literacy, away from mastery of and naming of the world towards a deepened entanglement with the more-than-human.
“It was my first AERA and I found it extremely enriching and overwhelming. I had the opportunity to attend to some presentations that provided me with a flavour of some of the main trends, concerns and interest in educational research in the context of USA. It allowed me to come out of the “UK-European bubble”.
David Menendez Alvarez-Hevia, Senior Lecturer, School of Childhood, Youth and Education Studies
“I was immensely proud of the breadth of ESRI’s research represented at AERA and the world-leading nature of the papers. As Head of ESRI it is a privilege to witness my colleagues’ amazing work”.
Booking is now open for the bibliotherapy day in Manchester on 5th September.
Join us for a day of sharing and discussion about bibliotherapy – the use of books and other reading materials to support health and wellbeing.
The event is open to anyone, whether you’re new to bibliotherapy or have experience of using fiction, poetry or self-help materials for wellbeing.
The morning will include a choice of workshops, including ‘Using wellbeing-themed stories and poems’; ‘Playful methods of bibliotherapy’; ‘Creative writing as bibliotherapy’; and ‘Running and setting up a reading group’.
The afternoon will see discussions on a range of topics, to be chosen in consultation with delegates.
We’ll also be celebrating the launch of our book, Bibliotherapy.
Investigating the impact of the Street Child World Cup: Researchers head to Moscow, ahead of the FIFA World Cup
Over 200 street-connected young people from across the world will come together today in Moscow for the third Street Child World Cup and researchers from Manchester Metropolitan University will be joining them to explore the tournament’s impact.
The Street Child World Cup uses the power of football to raise awareness and tackle the widespread stigma faced by street-connected children, inspiring countries, governments and communities to better protect, respect and support street-connected children everywhere.
The international football competition will bring together 24 national teams, made up of girls and boys, to represent their countries on the pitch. Off the pitch, the young people will make their voices heard at a festival of arts and Congress for their rights, calling for the rights of millions of children living and working on the streets worldwide.
Dr Su Lyn Corcoran, Research Associate at the Manchester Metropolitan University’s Education and Social Research Institute, and Dr Jeremy Oldfield, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, will be exploring the impact participating in the Street Child World Cup has on the young people who take part, the communities they belong to, and the organisations who support their participation.
Understanding the impact
Dr Oldfield said: “As advocacy is increasingly played out on international platforms, this research is important to understand how the ‘ambassador’ role as a voice for other street-connected young people affects the players’ own particular journeys away from the street.”
Examples of advocacy campaigns, like the Street Child World Cup: The Future Depends on You 2018, can provide young people with opportunities to journey to a new country, or countries.
Such journeys can develop positive representations of the communities that these young people belong to and provide audiences and potential donors with first-hand experience or ‘relationships’ with them.
They are also used to amplify the voices of the young people participating, offering them an opportunity to be heard advocating for themselves.
Run by Street Child United in association with Save the Children and leading Russian telecoms operator MegaFon, the Street Child World Cup offers researchers the opportunity to explore an international advocacy campaign’s impact on participants, multiple organisations from many different countries and the wider communities to which the young people belong.
Post-event, Dr Corcoran and Dr Oldfield will have the opportunity to investigate the extent to which taking on the role of self-advocate positively impacts upon the continuation of a young person’s reintegration journey away from the street and how they figure their own identities as having been street-connected within the publicity of participation in a high-profile event.
Dr Corcoran said: “In events such as the Street Child World Cup, competitors leave their homes in predominantly impoverished areas of large towns and capital cities to become the centre of attention for two weeks before returning to their ‘normal lives’. Exploring their experiences and their later transitions back into home communities means we can better understand the impact of participating in such events.
“This could inform the development of frameworks for both the organisation of similar events and managing the transition of participants returning home. Understanding both the positive impact and challenges arising from participation could also inform the development of programmes that model similar opportunities locally and internationally – especially those that change aspirations and build on these aspirations for the benefit of the participants and their communities.”
Dr Su Corcoran is fundraising for the 2018 #StreetChildWorldCup.
The Loneliness Connects Us youth co-research developed by researchers at ESRI and young people from 42nd Street has been republished as part of the Co-op Foundations’ new report All our emotions are important: Breaking the silence about youth loneliness – below. The report supplements the arts-based, qualitative research with a survey of 2,000 young people on perceptions of youth loneliness and barriers to talking about the issue.
Building on the Loneliness Connects Us research and in particular the Youth Seminar, we are supporting groups in Bury, Greater Manchester, to host a participatory seminar to develop community-based strategies for reducing loneliness.
The starting point is that loneliness is of major concern and not only affects the old but the young and the whole community.
The event aims to raise awareness and explore effective support within the community.
The intended audience are teachers and councillors, parents, GPs, social services, mental health services, young people, youth leaders, and members of the community.
This will be a collaborative event, full of research-informed and arts-inspired, activities to help us collectively create solutions to reduce loneliness.
So join us for an interactive seminar that will enable you to voice your ideas and opinions to end loneliness.
Booking is now open for the bibliotherapy day in Manchester on 5th September.