genderanded Issues

David Maguire on ‘Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On’

A Conference Report for GEA

The working title for my research is: ‘Learning to Serve Time: troubling Spaces of Working Class Masculinity in the U.K’. It aims to explore, through the in-depth study of a group of young adult prisoners, the ways in which the construction of a particular version(s) of masculinity operate as a factor in the academic (under)achievement, economic marginalisation, subsequent incarceration and later disadvantage of this particular group of young adult men. This research area links to some of the main themes presented at the conference including gender, youth and education. The day was packed with interesting and stimulating presentations, and thought provoking panel discussions. I was encouraged that the conference organisers gave space to community organisations, postgraduate students and established academics. Continue reading “David Maguire on ‘Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On’” →

genderanded Issues, Previous Conferences / Events

Sarah Burton on ‘Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On’

A Conference Report for GEA

Recently I had the pleasure of attending Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects:The London Riots one year on. The riots in August 2012 came just as I was preparing to begin my teacher training; I was fascinated by the reporting of the disturbance and violence as emanating from a disenfranchised, feral youth, unconnected to the society around them and wondered if I would see this in the teenagers I was about to embark on teaching. Throughout the course of the year I explored concepts of privilege and power with my pupils. Though my postgraduate research predominantly focuses on narratives of sexualities within the law and I was keen to combine my education background and current sociological perspective in order to explore further the narratives created around youth and misrule. Particularly interesting was the focus on riotous bodies and the idea of them as both dissonant and representative of specific groups or perceptions.

Continue reading “Sarah Burton on ‘Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On’” →

genderanded Issues, Previous Conferences / Events

Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On

A Conference Report for GEA

Over the past year, academics have brought critical perspectives to bear on the complex causes and consequences of the English riots of 2011. Important questions have been raised about the relationship between the riots and the increasingly hostile conditions of neolib

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eralism and Coalition policies, including: growing unemployment, rising tuition fees, the withdrawal of the EMA, cuts to Sure Start and an overhaul of welfare provision. Re-visiting the causes, consequences and ongoing effects of the riots has been vital, particularly when key policy figures, such as London Mayor Boris Johnson and Prime Minister David Cameron have dismissed the need for any sociological analysis, claiming the rioters were simply driven by pure criminality, greed and opportunism.  On the 28th September 2012 myself, Yvette Taylor of The Weeks Centre for Social and Policy Research (London South Bank University) and Sumi Hollingworth and Ayo Mansaray of the Institute for Policy Studies in Education (London Metropolitan University) held a one day collaborative conference ‘Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On’ to provide a space for the kinds of critical debates and questioning so readily dismissed by our politicians. Continue reading “Collisions, Coalitions and Riotous Subjects: The Riots One Year On” →

genderanded Issues

Care, the elephant in the (class)room?

Historically, in the UK and other European countries, the figures of the learner and the scholar have been associated with being care-free (i.e. with having no primary responsibility for dependents). These days, universities have considerably diversified, both in terms of their workforce and of their student population. Students with caring responsibilities now represent a significant presence in academia. According to the Student Income and Expenditure Survey, 8% of full-time students and 36% of part-time students who are English-domiciled are parents (Johnson et al., 2009). The National Union for Students established that, altogether, a third of Further Education and Higher Education students in England and Wales care for a dependent (NUS, 2009). Continue reading “Care, the elephant in the (class)room?” →

genderanded Issues

“Take a Walk in My Shoes”

When we think about the term ‘gender equality’, we tend to think about the oppression, violence and discrimination against girls and women.  We think of boys and men as the oppressors who create the problems that we face as women.  And we think that if we educate these men to respect and honor women, then all of our problems will be solved and the world will be a better place. While there is some truth to this idea, I recently experienced something incredible that changed my whole perspective.

Continue reading ““Take a Walk in My Shoes”” →

genderanded Issues

Watching A Wedding: Private-Publics

I came to a stop in my tracks. I stood and stared as I began to watch a wedding; a deliberately public event announcing itself, lakeside, on a bright – but still cold – winter day in Canberra.  I didn’t know the guests, the bride or the groom. But I still stopped. Maybe weddings were different in Australia, where same-sex marriage debates had intensified during my visiting fellowship at the ANU? Maybe I was about to witness something different? Continue reading “Watching A Wedding: Private-Publics” →

genderanded Issues

Physics Education: It’s Different for Girls?

Back in the late eighties I was one of two girls out of thirty pupils in my 5th form Physics class. While girls were happy to take up the Biology and Modern Language options, in my Physics class I languished- ignored by the boys that did not care to pair up for experiments with lens and pendulums with these odd girls that had bizarrely chosen this apparently most ‘male’ of subjects. Sadly, my experience in the Physics lab mirrored that of the sports playing field. Last to be picked, my teenage love of hockey and Physics soon waned.  It seems little has unfortunately changed in the intervening decades. Continue reading “Physics Education: It’s Different for Girls?” →

genderanded Issues

‘Hello my little Barbies’: Nicki Minaj and Masquerade

A few months back a youth work colleague voiced concern about the young women she works with listening to a rising new female rapper, Nicki Minaj.  She felt that the lyrics and the image were over-sexualised and liable to provide a potentially poor role model for the young people in the youth project with whom she worked. This also followed a YouTube sensation of two very small British girls, Sophie-Grace and Rosie belting out Minaj’s tune ‘SuperBass’ which was proudly recorded by their mothers. The YouTube hit enabled the young girls to have their precocious 15 minutes of fame as they sat next to US chat show host, Ellen DeGeneres and performed with their idol, Nicki on the Ellen talk show. Continue reading “‘Hello my little Barbies’: Nicki Minaj and Masquerade” →

genderanded Issues

Bad Animals Sitting Sweetly: Some Thoughts on Naughtiness, Gender and What We Learn in School

Let it be known that my six-year-old daughter is a child rife with frolicsome mischief.  

The experience of parenting said child fostered my interest in naughty youngsters, the connections between misbehavior and personhood and how all children—especially girls– are socialized in schools. Thus socialized through behavior management practices, many are taught to equate obedience with learning and conformity with personhood. Recently I came across two different pieces in the mainstream media that piqued my interest along these lines: The first was Bill Lichtenstein’s September 9th New York Times reflection on the all-too-common strategies for ‘managing students in US schools and the second was a BBC interview with Michael Kenny, the first male graduate of Norland College.   Continue reading “Bad Animals Sitting Sweetly: Some Thoughts on Naughtiness, Gender and What We Learn in School” →

genderanded Issues

In My Own Words: A Feminist Narrative

In the second of her autobiographical interviews with feminist academics, Carol Taylor talks to Valerie Hey. Currently Professor of Education at the University of Sussex, Valerie is well known for her theoretical and practical commitment to exploring the entanglements of class, gender and feminist politics, and for her subtle analyses of the constitution of subjectivity. Here, Valerie reflects on her career, muses on education in Con-Lib times, and speaks of the enduring importance of feminism.

 

Continue reading “In My Own Words: A Feminist Narrative” →