genderanded Issues

On the ascendance: education as a key to global feminism?

GEA Policy Report, March 2013

International women’s week was inaugurated in the media this year in a quiet way and yet it has spawned a tremendous amount of footage in the press and other media, culminating in the UK with a weekend festival of arts called Women of the World organized by Jude Kelly, indomitable director of the Southbank Centre in London. What is particular music to GEA is the welcome focus on Education as the main path to equality as can be seen in a myriad of articles, letters and comments and the launch of the new British Library website. Continue reading “On the ascendance: education as a key to global feminism?” →

genderanded Issues, Previous Conferences / Events

A report from from the BSA’s Young Masculinities one-day seminar

On Friday the 2nd of November, in an event entitled Young Masculinities: Challenges, Changes and Transitions the British Sociological Association’s Youth Study Group turned their attention to masculinities, an area receiving ever increasing academic attention in light of both the concerns of ‘the problem with boys’ as well as shifts within contemporary theories of masculinity. These shifting theories of masculinity have been usefully brought together in relation to education in particular in a recent article in Gender and Education by Chris Haywood and Máirtín Mac an Ghaill (October 2012), who suggest that “studies of masculinity in education are reconsidering how masculinity is being constituted” (2012: 580). Thus, while researchers within the field of gender and education have had masculinity as a central site of analysis for some time, in the case of the BSA’s Youth Study Group, masculinity has been noticeably absent as Steve Roberts, the group’s co-organiser remarked when opening the seminar. Although education acted as an investigatory location for some of the papers (Cann, Ingram, Kehler, Schalet), education as a specific avenue of investigation for young masculinities was interestingly not at the forefront of the papers being given. Forms of education could nonetheless be observed in the papers offered, with young men learning about acceptable forms of cultural consumption, learning about codes of conduct within particular subcultural contexts, learning to regulate themselves, and applying what it means to be a ‘man’ in transition(s) to the work place. The relationship between education and young men was therefore located, in most of the papers, at the level of social and cultural practice rather than at a formal or institutional level. Continue reading “A report from from the BSA’s Young Masculinities one-day seminar” →

genderanded Issues

Ditching the ‘Sticks and Stones’: Facebook and the power of social regulation

Back in the day, I remember my mum repeating the old slogan “Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”. I think it was in the context of some kids in my kindergarten class teasing me. Thankfully it was not a scarring incident and I don’t exactly remember the nature of the insults. However, I do remember that saying. I reflect on it now in reference to my mothers’ upbringing that consisted of a difficult relationship with her naval father in the south west of England. She embodied a sense of ‘toughness’ and to ‘never let them make you cry’. She still recommends this way of being today and constantly espouses that it is one of her strengths- that the people around her will never see her emotions and never know if they affect her. So in the context of my life it wasn’t a saying that was out of character. Indeed, it made a lot of sense back then. Sticks and stones could hurt you (as my sisters often showed me); whilst in comparison a few verbal insults were surely manageable. Continue reading “Ditching the ‘Sticks and Stones’: Facebook and the power of social regulation” →

genderanded Issues

Enterprising, Enduring, Enabling? Early Career Efforts and ‘Winning’ Workshops

I was recently invited to present and participate in a British Sociological Association (BSA) workshop organized by the Early Career Researchers (ECRs) Study Group conveners, Dr Katherine Twamley and Dr Mark Doidge. The title of the workshop ‘What is a Winning Funding Application?’ posed an urgent, anxious question, felt as I planned my delivery and attempted to answer a loaded query, literally worth a lot. I wondered how I would, with colleagues, ‘workshop’ my way out of funding crises and the destruction of UK Higher Education: how to keep things constructive and positive in a harsh new climate? To enable rather than dissuade even as ‘early career’ is ever extended across the career trajectory which means some never ‘arrive’? Continue reading “Enterprising, Enduring, Enabling? Early Career Efforts and ‘Winning’ Workshops” →

genderanded Issues

The Exciting Life of Being a Woman: A Handbook for Women & Girls by Feminist Webs

Recently I picked up a new book by the feminist youth work collective, Feminist Webs. The Exciting Life of Being a Woman: A Handbook for Women and Girls is a riposte to the rather dreary offerings that can be found in some UK bookshops which provide a nostalgic, new take on the 1950’s children’s annuals which offered a range of sports, crafts and facts to equip young boys with the skills and knowledge to be appropriately ‘boyish’. The equivalent popular books for girls again provide range of appropriate normative gendered ideas and activities. Continue reading “The Exciting Life of Being a Woman: A Handbook for Women & Girls by Feminist Webs” →

genderanded Conference 2013, Issues

GEA 2013: Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections: Policy, Practice, Parity

Gender and Education Association Biennial Conference 2013

Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, London South Bank University

Tuesday 23rd– Friday 26th April 2013

 

Confirmed keynote speakers:

– Prof. Lisa Adkins, University of Newcastle, Australia (What Do Wages Do? Feminist Theory After the Financial Crisis)

– Prof. Val Gillies, Weeks Centre, LSBU (From Baby Brain to Conduct Disorder: the New Determinism in the Classroom)

– Bidisha: From Eastern Primitivism to Western Decadence? Overcoming the Notion of Cultural Differences in Gender, Race and Class Politics

 

Plenary Panel:

– Dr Tracey Reynolds, Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, LSBU

– Dr Jin Haritaworn, Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies

– Dr Kay Inckle, Trinity College Dublin

– Dr Jayne Osgood, London Metropolitan University

– Dr Vanita Sundaram, University of York

 

Performance:

– Dr Claudia Brazzle, Liverpool Hope University

– Teddy Nygh, Director of Riot From Wrong and Co-Founder of Fully Focused

 

The ninth international Gender and Education Association conference, Compelling Diversities, Educational Intersections hosted by the Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research, engages with key debates surrounding the interplay between dynamics of education, work, employment and society in the context of crisis, upheaval and cutbacks, which reconfigure axes of intersectional inequalities. In considering diversity in education, this conference will explore the relationship between new equality regimes and continued educational inequalities, exploring organisational ambivalence, change and resistance. It will ask important questions about the role of feminist research at a time when education, and its variously placed subjects (academics, pupils, students, and policy makers), wrestle with the commitments and contentions in doing diversity and being diverse.

 

Book your place

If you are paying by debit or credit card, please book online using Eventbrite at http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/4743075667

If you wish to receive an invoice or have any queries, please email enterprise-events@lsbu.ac.uk

 

Conference Fee

£380 – Standard conference booking fee – Member*

£420 – Standard conference booking fee – Non-member

£150 – Standard day rate

 

* To obtain your discount code, necessary for member discount, please contact Alice Jesmont (a.jesmont@lancaster.ac.uk)