Author: genderanded

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Exploring the participatory experiences of transgender and non-binary people in sport
Abby Barras, Ph.D. Student, University of Brighton
Twitter: @AbbyBarras
Blog: www.abbybarras.com

I’m going to start this introduction off with a confession. This is going to be only the second conference I have ever presented at, ever. If you had told me two years ago that I would be standing in front of academics and talking about my PhD research, the chances of me believing you would be rock bottom. This is not because I have had a meteoric rise into academia, far from it. Rather I am here by a lucky fluke, a bit of hard work, and the good grace to know that it’s not an opportunity to be squandered. This post is as much an explanation as to how I got here as a thank you to those who helped and inspired me and continue to do so.

At the time of writing I am just finishing my second year as a full-time PhD student at the University of Brighton, based in the School of Applied Social Science. My research focuses on the participatory experiences of transgender and non-binary people in everyday sport and physical exercise in the UK. It’s a scholarly extension of my master’s dissertation (Gender Studies, University of Sussex) which looked at participation for elite level transgender athletes and why posters on the website Mumsnet had (and continue to have), such an issue with transgender people taking part in sport. My research is a bit of a balancing act, drawing on feminist standpoint and queer theory, hegemonic masculinity, sports sociology, gender studies and the significance of transgender people and bodies.

I came late, then, to postgrad education, doing my MA part time in 2014 when my son started school and I was working at the University of Brighton as an administrator. It was hard at times to juggle it all, but I found a home on that course, one which offered me non-judgemental explanations as to why I had been feeling so overwhelmed by motherhood. It gave me a renewed belief system, it re-politicised me and reconnected me to feminism. I found the topics which I could most relate to were those around bodies: pregnant bodies, bodies that move, health, fitness and sport. I was fascinated by the opposing arguments in academia and the media and wanted to explore these debates more fully. In October 2016 I applied to do a PhD and was accepted to the University of Brighton to start the following year. Without the support of my tutor Prof Alison Phipps and former supervisor Prof Katherine Johnson I would not be here, now writing about this PhD, and I will be forever grateful to them both for believing in me.

Don’t worry, I’m done with trying to understand what’s going on in Mumsnet-Land, but I did come to realise that there is a lack of in-depth qualitative research which directly asks transgender people about their participatory experiences in everyday sport and physical exercise. Transgender people still face greater barriers to participation than cis-gender people, so I wanted to find out exactly why and hopefully, work with people to reduce these health inequalities.

Lastly, my research would not exist were it not for the generosity of the people in the transgender community who spoke to me about their experiences. The biggest thanks will always be to them.

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Navigating Sexual Violence Cases in US and English Universities
Erin Shannon, Ph.D. Student, University of York
Twitter: @Erin_R_Shannon

I never thought I would land in a Department of Education for my Ph.D. studies. Thanks to the nature of my research—sexual violence in universities—I have been in a different department for each of my degrees: I double majored in English Literature and Women’s and Gender Studies at The College of New Jersey, moved to an International Development department (and Brighton) in 2016 for my MA in Gender, Violence and Conflict at the University of Sussex, and am now in the second year of my doctorate in University of York’s Department of Education. Since I am relatively new to the field of educational studies, this will be my first time at a Gender and Education Association conference and I am very much looking forward to sharing some preliminary findings from my thesis.

My thesis is a comparative project examining how universities in the United States and in England respond to student disclosures of sexual harassment and sexual violence. In order to understand how universities handle these cases, I am examining three levels of response: written policy, how university staff members implement that written policy, and how student victims/survivors experience staff implementation of policy. I am beginning to conduct a policy discourse analysis to address the first of these response levels and am nearly finished with my fieldwork, which addresses the latter two. I conducted 44 interviews with university staff members (e.g. Wellbeing Advisors, Title IX Coordinators) at five diverse universities in each country as well as with self-selected student victims/survivors who had reported to their universities.

While student demographics and sexual violence victimisation rates (around 25% of students) are similar in England and the United States, responses differ significantly as the United States has a standardised federal response framework while England currently does not. In the 2016 Changing the Culture report, however, Universities UK noted that it was looking at established response frameworks, such as Australia’s and the United States’, for guidance in possibly creating a national model. Beyond national structure, university responses to sexual violence also look different in practice in each country: Title IX in the United States is a legalistic and punitive model while English universities often pursue a culture change model.

My findings suggest that despite these differences in response structure, universities in England and the United States have a shared investment in protecting their institutional reputation over the wellbeing of their students, especially student victims/survivors. My participants shared with me that this need to preserve reputation comes in many forms, including protecting academic staff who perpetrate violence because they are seen as ‘valuable’ (e.g. they win large grants or provide important REF contributions), urging students not to go to the press about their cases, and even forcing a student to report so the university could fire a tenured professor to eliminate bad press. This prioritisation of institutional reputation over student wellbeing occurred in my sample despite the genuinely good intentions of individual staff members responsible for policy creation and implementation.  

I will be discussing this dynamic and more initial findings during my presentation, and am looking forward to connecting with other feminist education scholars. If you would like to know more about my research in the meantime, you can visit projectcursv.com

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

We are pleased to announce the launch of a new series entitled Feminist Thought in Childhood Research at the Gender and Education Conference this year.

Edited by Professors Jayne Osgood (Middlesex University, UK) and Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw (University of Western Ontario, Canada) and published by Bloomsbury Academic, the series will be launched at the Gender and Education Association conference on Thursday 27^th June at 12pm in Portland Building, Room 2.33abc. All conference attendees are very welcome to bring their lunch and come along to the launch for the chance to find out more about the series as well as opportunities to contribute to it.

Drawing on feminist scholarship, this series explores the use of creative and experimental modes of researching and practising in childhood studies. Recognising the complex neo-liberal landscape and worrisome spaces of coloniality in the 21^st century, books in the series provide a forum for cross-disciplinary, interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary conversations in childhood studies that engage feminist decolonial, anticolonial, more-than-human, new materialisms, post-humanist and other post-foundational perspectives that seek to reconfigure human experience. The series offers lively examples of feminist research praxis and politics that invite childhood studies scholars, students and educators to engage in collectively to imagine childhood otherwise.

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The series has three volumes available so far:

• Feminists Researching Gendered Childhoods: Generative Entanglements, edited by Jayne Osgood & Kerry H. Robinson
• Feminist Research for 21^st-century Childhoods: Common Worlds Methods, edited by B. Denise Hodgins
• Theorizing Feminist Ethics of Care in Early Childhood Practice: Possibilities and Dangers, edited by Rachel Langford

The series editors welcome proposals for new books – both authored and edited collections, from early career and established scholars – addressing past, present and future childhood research issues from a global context.

Delegates of the GEA Conference 2019 will also have the opportunity to receive 35% off the first three books in the series – so look out for a discount flyer in your delegate pack!

If you have any questions or comments about the series, you can contact the series editors or publisher:

• Jayne Osgood, j.osgood @ mdx.ac.uk
• Veronica Pacini-Ketchabaw, vpacinik @ uwo.ca
• Publisher: Mark Richardson, mark.richardson @ bloomsbury.com

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

Join us for the free pre-conference day for the Gender and Education Association international conference. Anyone can join, whether or not you are joining us for the rest of conference.

International Teacher Symposium, University of Portsmouth, Monday 24^th June 2019

Supporting Diversity in Schools and Communities

FREE, Registration required, spaces limited, lunch provided: http://bit.ly/GEA_Reg

All are welcome. The event is especially organised for teachers, education leaders, and education researchers. The full day event is scheduled for 9:30am-6pm. For event details, including session times, please visit the conference website

Download and share the Symposium flyer

Session Topics and Presenters

Keynote and Workshop: Becoming resource-ful: the making and mattering of creative activisms to address gender and sexual violence, Professor Emma Renold, Cardiff University

Workshop: Beyond Awareness: Breaking Implicit Bias Habits, Dr Jessica Gagnon, University of Portsmouth & Dr Arif Mahmud, University of Roehampton

Celebrating Differences: Whole School and Community Approaches to Supporting LGBTQ+ Students, Aaren-James Martin & Sarah Jolliffe (Portsmouth Pride), Josh Breach (Portsmouth City Council), & Jo Morgan (Portsmouth Grammar School)

Engaging Boys and Men as Agents of Change in #MeToo: Powerful Pitfalls and Possibilities,
Professor Michael Kehler, University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada

Teaching Feminist Digital Writing and Activism on #MeToo, Sexism, and Racism,
Ileana Jiménez, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York USA         

If you are attending, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Keynote Speaker Professor Emma Renold
Twitter: @EmmaRenold and@agenda_matters
Keynote Date: Monday 24th June (FREE Pre-Conference Day)

Keynote and Workshop Title: Becoming resource-ful: the making and mattering of creative activisms to address gender and sexual violence

Abstract: This session shares the making and mattering of AGENDA: A Young people’s guide to making positive relationships matter (www.agenda.wales, Renold 2016). AGENDA was co-created with young people for young people, and started out as a bi-lingual, 75 page activist resource to address gender-based and sexual violence. Since 2016 AGENDA has expanded into an online resource for practitioners and young people with additional new case studies and activities from England and Wales across both primary and secondary sectors (see www.agendaonline.co.uk).

AGENDA is all about creating art-ful encounters that make space for young people to learn about gender-based and sexual violence in relations/hips through the rule-bending and rule-breaking practices of others. Carefully designed, it connects fields of practice together that are often estranged through divisive curricula (e.g. arts, science, humanities) or policy terrains (e.g. anti-bullying, children’s rights, violence against girls and women, safeguarding). Inspired by the Latin origins of activism (actus: “a doing, driving force, or an impulse”) AGENDA invites young people and their practitioner allies to learn and do something about what matters to them in the context of social justice, rights, equalities and diversity. From equal pay and poverty to misogynoir, street harassment and LGBTQI rights this resource lifts the silence on issues so often skirted over in schools with over 30 examples of creative change-making practices sourced from local and global youth activist stories and local case studies.

Creativity, transformation and affirmation are the heart-beat of the resource – processes that have been developed over years of experimenting with participatory research-engagement-activisms, inspired by queer/feminist materialist and posthuman scholar-activism, particularly within the field of gender and sexuality education (e.g. Taylor & Ivinson, 2013, Coleman & Ringrose, 2013; Taylor & Hughes, 2016; Allen & Rasmussen, 2017). Ringrose, Warfield and Baradisi, 2019, Osgood and Robinson 2019, Taylor, Jones and Coll 2019). The aim of this session is to share some of this process through film, images and artefacts and invite participants to try out some of the AGENDA stARTer activities. Throughout, there will be plenty of opportunity to explore the challenges and affordances of how to become more crafty and resource-ful in mobilising creative activisms and pedagogy for addressing gender and sexual violence, and making Relationships and Sexuality Education matter in new ways more widely.   

Bio: Emma Renold is Professor of Childhood Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Wales. She is the author of ‘Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities’ (2005), Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation’ (with Ringrose and Egan, 2015) and co-editor of the book series “Routledge Critical Studies in Gender and Sexuality in Education”. Inspired by feminist, queer and new materialist posthumanist theory, her research investigates how gender and sexuality come to matter in children and young people’s everyday lives across diverse sites, spaces and locales. Here, (see www.productivemargins.ac.uk) she has explored the affordances of co-productive, creative and affective methodologies to engage social and political change with young people on gendered and sexual violence, including the co-production of the creative-activist resource for young people and practitioners, ‘AGENDA’ (see www.agendaonline.co.uk). In 2018 Emma was winner of the ESRC Impact in Society Prize – a landmark achievement for how feminist-queer qualitative research-activisms can inform policy and practice.

Watch the ESRC video of Professor Renold’s research, ‘Transforming Relationships and Sexuality Education in Wales’:

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Keynote Speaker Professor Deevia Bhana
Keynote Date: Wednesday 26th June

Keynote Title: Facing South: Love, sex and teenage sexual cultures in South Africa

Abstract: Under conditions of ongoing economic misery and precarious social existences, the sexualities of young South Africans are often positioned within the realm of sexual danger and written and thought about as loveless. Instead, close-up studies of teenage sexualities brings teenagers’ pleasures, pains and desires to centre stage, and takes heed of its gendered effects and local configurations of power. It remains an embryonic field of study, and in this keynote presentation I join in the conversation in facing teenage sexualities in the South. I situate teenage con-structions of love, sexuality and desire within a wider social and cultural context underwritten by the histories of colonialism and apartheid, chronic unemployment, poverty, and stark economic and infrastructural inequalities. I draw on a larger research project titled Learning from the Learners, which views teenagers as active agents and has thus generated a more nuanced picture of young peoples’ desires, and the dangers and dilemmas they must navigate as they explore their sexuality. I show how teenagers’ are deeply invested in—and concerned about—many types of love: queer, romantic, pure, violent, material, and provider. I argue that teenagers’ conceptions of love, romance, fear and desire serve as important anchors in the social constitution of teenage sexuality; conversely, the expression of sexuality is often distressing in the context of structural violence, cultural norms, the regulation of female sexuality, and the hegemonic power of heterosexuality. Taking into account African teenagers’ in-your-face realities, this paper encourages an acknowledgment of their sexualities that rejects the stereotypes of fear and danger, and offers new entry points into more relevant sexuality education that can meet the needs of those that matter.

Bio: Professor Deevia Bhana is the NRF/DST South African Research Chair and Professor in Gender and Childhood Sexuality at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. She is known for her interdisciplinary approach and critical stance in researching childhood sexuality, gender, schooling and young people in South Africa and her international outlook in shaping the field of young people’s sexualities. Among her recent book publications are Love, Sex and Teenage Sexual Cultures in South Africa; 16 turning 17 (2018) and Childhood Sexuality and AIDS Education: The price of innocence (2016); Gender and Childhood Sexuality in Primary School (2016) and Under Pressure: the regulation of sexualities in South African Secondary Schools (2014).

See Professor Bhana deliver her inaugural lecture at University of KwaZulu-Natal:

https://youtu.be/p0UPkBZ3RP8

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Looking Back, Looking Forward
Zibah Nwako, University of Bristol

So, how did I get here? Looking back, I would describe my PhD study as an indirect consequence of my professional background as a self-development trainer and consultant. Although my main experience is from administration and informal education – as a proprietor of several out-of-school clubs – my career trajectory has certainly not been a linear one.

Having spent 8 years serving children in pre-school/nursery, primary and secondary schools, I moved on to becoming a licensed trainer for the Springboard Women’s Development Programme, run by the Springboard Consultancy in the UK. In 2008, I had the privilege of establishing the programme in Nigeria, West Africa where I train up to 30 participants per course. One of the outputs from this was a culturalisation of the Springboard workbook to suit the Nigerian context, which was an enlightening experience.

Fast forward to 2014 and I headed to the University of Bristol to study for a Masters’ degree in Educational Leadership, Policy and Development. For my research dissertation, I studied the impact of informal learning on the aspirations and experiences of girls in rural Nigeria – including through folklore, ethnic practices, traditions and village customs.

On the professional side, I expanded my portfolio (again with the Springboard Consultancy) by becoming a ‘Sprint’ trainer – the Springboard equivalent for female university students. When it was time to choose a topic for doctorate study, one of my previous supervisors suggested, ‘Why don’t you marry your two interests – self-development and young women?’ She was right, and the topic was birthed! I am now therefore exploring the wellbeing of female undergraduate students in Nigeria from a social justice perspective and using the capability approach.

From her research on the capabilities that matter for gender equality, Prof. Melanie Walker wrote in a policy brief, ‘Women were expected to study in conditions where the expectations, norms, values, traditions and ways of behaving are derived from masculinised conceptions of what is “normal”’ (Walker, 2017 p. 1). This is certainly reflected in this study which I conducted with the female students as my research partners.

As this is my first time of attending the GEA conference, I am keen to share some of my research partners’ lived experiences and to reflect on the wider factors (socio-cultural, environmental and political) that impact on their wellbeing. In accordance with the conference theme, I will highlight the prevailing gender-based invisibilities and inequalities that they face, particularly in student political activism. I also look forward to a communication of ideas with which to contextualise the Sprint programme in support of the wellbeing of female students in Nigerian higher education.

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Keynote Speaker Professor Kalwant Bhopal
Twitter: @KalwantBhopal
Keynote Date: Thursday 27th June

Keynote Title: Competing Inequalities: Gender, Race and White Privilege in Higher Education Institutions in the UK

Abstract: This presentation will draw upon recent research from two projects exploring the impacts and institutional experiences of the Athena SWAN (ASC) and Race Equality (REC) Charter Marks in UK universities (Bhopal and Pitkin, 2018; Bhopal and Henderson, 2019). The findings from these studies examine how charter marks are shaping and influencing practice in universities, particularly in relation to gender, race and White privilege. I argue that in higher education policy making, there has been a privileging of gender over race in terms of addressing inequalities in higher education. Whilst acknowledging the persistence of inequalities in both groups, the data from these projects highlights a significant risk that gender and race inequalities become conflated in current equalities work. As a consequence of a logic of efficiency that drives Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to combine gender and race equalities work, and the privileging within this combination of gender, HEIs publicly work towards equality and inclusion in general terms. Consequently they do so without having to confront uncomfortable and deeply embedded practices that perpetuate White privilege in the academy (Bhopal, 2018).

Bio: Professor Kalwant Bhopal is Professor of Education and Social Justice and Deputy Director of the Centre for Research in Race & Education (CRRE) at the University of Birmingham. Professor Bhopal’s research focuses on the achievements and experiences of minority ethnic groups in education. She has conducted research on exploring discourses of identity and intersectionality examining the lives of Black minority ethnic groups as well as examining the marginal position of Gypsies and Travellers. Her research specifically explores how processes of racism, exclusion and marginalisation operate in predominantly White spaces with a focus on social justice and inclusion. She is Visiting Professor at Harvard University in the Harvard Graduate School of Education and Visiting Professor at Kings College London (Department of Education and Professional Studies). Her most recent book, White Privilege: the myth of a post-racial society was published in 2018 by Policy Press.

See a video from a recent LSE event: Racial Inequality in Britain: the Macpherson Report 20 years on, featuring Professor Bhopal speaking at minute 42:

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019

This post is part of the Countdown to Conference (C2C) series. We would love to feature a brief blog post from you too! Visit our main Countdown to Conference page for details! For more information about #GEAConf2019 visit the conference website

C2C: Keynote Speaker Professor Heidi Safia Mirza
Twitter: @HeidiMirza 
Keynote Date: Tuesday 25th June

Keynote Title: Dismantle, Decolonise and Disgrace: Black feminism and the challenges of racism and sexism in higher education

Abstract: What does racism and sexism look like in our institutions of higher education in so called post-race and post-feminist times? To answer this crucial question this keynote lecture draws on black feminist perspectives to explore the lives of Muslim, Black and Asian women who study and work within the unsafe spaces of patriarchal whiteness and asks how do we confront endemic sexual violence and dismantle embedded racism in our elite places of teaching and learning. Drawing on my intersectional research on gender, race and faith and the pedagogic practices, I reflect on the embodied work we must do as feminist teacher-learner-activists so we can survive and thrive and truly decolonise our institutions of higher learning.

Bio: Heidi Safia Mirza is Emeritus Professor in Equalities Studies, UCL Institute of Education and visiting Professor of Race, Faith and Culture at Goldsmith’s College, University of London. She is known for her pioneering intersectional research on race, gender and identity in education and has an international reputation for championing equality and human rights for women, black and Muslim young people through educational reform. She is author of several best-selling books including, Black British Feminism: A Reader;Race, Gender and Educational Desire: Why black women succeed and fail; Black and Postcolonial Feminisms in New Times: Researching Educational Inequalities; Respecting Difference: Race, faith and culture for teacher educators; and Young Female and Black, which was voted in the BERA top 40 most influential educational studies in Britain. Her most recent book is Dismantling Race in Higher Education: Racism, whiteness and decolonising the academy (Palgrave McMillian 2018).

See a video from a recent CRASSH Impact event featuring Professor Mirza in conversation with author Reni Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, chaired by NUS President Shakira Martin:

If you are attending conference, let us know on Twitter using the hashtag: #GEAconf2019