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”.
Kate Pahl, Head of ESRI