Thinking the ‘yet to be thought': ESRC seminar series

[Jill Anderson]

An international cross-sector seminar series exploring socially just education and inequalities in education

A new Seminar Series has been funded by the ESRC, to run from October 2014 until September 2016. This is an exciting opportunity to bring together academics, practitioners, teachers, educators, campaigners, parents and students. All events will be organised to be democratic and participative.

This seminar series, entitled ‘Thinking the ‘yet to be thought’ is underpinned by the principle that in order to be able to envisage different ways of doing things, we need to step outside our usual frames of reference. Instead of looking inside existing systems for answers, developing transformative and socially just educational systems requires more radical approaches or ‘totally different ways of envisioning education’ (Reay, 2012). This reflects Bernstein’s (1996) work on the pedagogic device, in which he describes the place between the known and the unknown as ‘the crucial site of the yet to be thought.’ This place, he argues, is often regulated by those who have the power to control what is thought and who it is thought by; in essence, those with power can reproduce inequalities in education by ensuring that they control the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment strategy. By inviting speakers who undertake research or operate as practitioners in counter-hegemonic structures, this seminar series seeks to challenge these distributive rules about ‘knowledge’.

This seminar series brings together academics and practitioners who have expertise in socially just education systems and who have adopted or researched alternative and radical ways of working and thinking. There is an inherent international focus, as within the field of education, many of the best examples of alternative and counter-hegemonic systems operate outside of the UK: for example, in Denmark, Australia and the USA. The speakers and audience include: a) academics with expertise in exploring inequalities in education; b) academics with expertise in counter-hegemonic educational practice in terms of pedagogy and curriculum, assessment, democratic structures and systems; c) practitioners with experience in these counter-hegemonic schools and universities which strive for ‘totally different ways of envisioning education’; d) trade unions; e) policy makers; f) parents and students.

Find out more.