Dr. Claire Cassidy
University of Strathclyde
Friday, 15 June 2018
(1:50pm - 2:50pm) Friday’s lecture: Practical philosophy and creating agents of change
Philosophy with Children has been described by UNESCO as a ‘School for Freedom’, with the aim of creating reflective minds that are capable of facing ‘the great challenges of the contemporary world’ (2007, p. 240). In this presentation, I will draw on my own work in Philosophy with Children, including research with children from pre-school to eighteen years-old and in a range of contexts. I will discuss the potential of Philosophy with Children, notably the practice of Community of Philosophical Inquiry (CoPI), in relation to achieving UNESCO’s goal. I will argue that CoPI supports children’s voice, thereby equipping them to be agents of change. Importantly, this will require consideration of different notions of ‘child’ and how these impact upon children’s opportunities to engage in research, and society more broadly. I will also propose that, as researchers in the social sciences, it is incumbent upon us to reflect and to think philosophically if we ourselves are to be agents of change through the work we undertake. Speaker biography: Claire joined the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, in 2001 and is currently a senior lecturer. She leads the research theme Rights, Citizenship and Dialogue within the School of Education. Previously, she was a primary school teacher, latterly teaching asylum seeking children English. She has facilitated practical philosophy with children and adults in a range of settings for twenty-five years. Claire established, and leads, the Postgraduate Certificate in Philosophy with Children at Strathclyde, part of the MEd (Education Studies) and the EdD (Philosophy with Children). Her research interests coalesce around inter-related topics: Philosophy with Children, rights, and concepts of child and childhood. She convenes the Philosophy with Children and Communities Network, bringing together Community of Philosophical Inquiry facilitators to take practical philosophy into schools and communities. Claire is on the editorial board for Childhood & Philosophy and for Scottish Educational Review. She also hosts the biennial international and multi-disciplinary Contemporary Childhood Conference (https://www.strath.ac.uk/humanities/schoolofeducation/newsevents/contemporarychildhoodconference2018/) . Follow Claire @ClairePwCC and the Philosophy with Children and Communities Network @PwCCScotland Selected publications: Cassidy, C., Conrad, S-J., Daniel, M-F., Garside, D., Kohan, W., Murris, K., Rego, M., Wu, X. and Zhelyazkova, T. (2017). Being children: children’s voices on childhood. International Journal of Children’s Rights 24(3-4), 698-715. Cassidy, C. (2017). Philosophy with Children: a rights-based approach to deliberative participation. International Journal of Children’s Rights 25(2), 320-334. Cassidy, C., Marwick, H., Deeney, L. & McLean, G. (2017). Philosophy with Children, self-regulation and engaged participation for children with emotional-behavioural and social communication difficulties. Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties 23(1), 81-96. Cassidy, C. (2016). Promoting human rights through Philosophy with Children. International Journal of Children’s Rights 24(3), 499-521. |
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Dr. Sol Gamsu
University of Bath
Saturday, 16 June 2018
(11:55am - 12:55pm) Saturday’s lecture: Celtic geographies of higher education: mapping the movements from home to university across the Irish sea
In this paper we examine how school to university transitions simultaneously reflect and create historical divisions and patterns of migration that traverse the Irish sea. We draw on a qualitative dataset of 1200 students aged 17/18 from 20 schools across the UK and Northern Ireland. These data include both questionnaires and a novel qualitative mapping technique in which students visualised the spatial boundaries of where they wished to apply for university. Students were then selected on the basis of their map and questionnaire. To explore the distinct patterns of school to university movements associated with moving within and from Northern Ireland for university, we focus on data from our two Northern Irish schools, a Catholic girls’ grammar and a non-selective co-educational Protestant school, as well as schools in Liverpool and Glasgow. We argue that the moment of choosing a university is bound up in historical trajectories of migration that connect Northern Ireland to cities in Scotland and England. Historical links connecting Northern Ireland and the Republic to Glasgow, Liverpool and Manchester were implicitly and sometimes explicitly present in the spatial imaginaries of young people as they consider where to apply to university. Students’ knowledge of places and universities through family networks, friends and football tacitly drew on these past connections, underlining how the moment of university choice is central to creating and maintaining regional and national boundaries and socio-spatial divisions. I will also talk about the transition from PhD to postdoc – the shift between working on your own project to working with a PI. I’ll talk about conferencing as a PhD student, building a network, thinking about publishing, and applying for jobs. Most of all I’ll talk PhD time and some strategies for coping and enjoying it all. Speaker biography: I completed my PhD in Geography at King’s College London in November 2016. I am currently a researcher on the ESRC-funded project, Geographies of Higher Education: Spatial and social mobilities, and I will take up a lectureship in sociology at Durham University in 2019. My PhD examined how long-term regional inequalities continue to shape the geography of young peoples' post-16 to higher education trajectories. Specifically, it focussed on disentangling London-specific middle-class and elite ‘circuits of education’ from broader national socio-spatial patterns of social reproduction through the school system. I have recently had a paper published in the British Journal of Sociology on elite state schools in Outer London and how a project to re-create a selective grammar school has combined with ethnic-minority suburbanization. Within the project I have also co-authored papers on regional mobility into higher education, social class and accent, ethnicity of home neighbourhood and university attended and elite graduate recruitment into financial careers. Selected publications: Donnelly, M. & Gamsu, S. (2018). 'Home and away': Social, Ethnic and Spatial Inequalities in Student Mobility. The Sutton Trust. Donnelly, M. & Gamsu, S. (2018). Regional structures of feeling? A spatially and socially differentiated analysis of UK student im/mobility. British Journal of Sociology of Education. Gamsu, S. (2018). The ‘Other’ London effect: the diversification of London’s suburban grammar schools and the rise of hyper-selective elite state schools. British Journal of Sociology. Gamsu, S. & Donnelly, M. (2017), Diverse places of learning: Home neighbourhood ethnic diversity and the ethnic composition of universities. Bath: Institute of Policy Research, University of Bath. Gamsu, S. (2016). Moving up and moving out: the re-location of elite and middle-class schools from central London to the suburbs. Urban Studies. 53(14), 2921-2938 |