Maynooth Education Forum - 26 June 2015
‘Educational Disadvantage’ - Critique, Challenges and Solutions
Keynote speakers:
| Facing ‘Disadvantage’: Experiences, Languages and Reimaginings Professor Sharon Todd, Maynooth University Professor Todd describes her experience of the Forum |
| Assembling disadvantage-disorder: food, bodies, criminal justice, parenting, mental disorder, bio-science, special education, tests, work, TV and money Professor Deborah Youdell, University of Birmingham |
| The impact of early years investment on long term outcomes Professor Kathy Sylva, Oxford University Professor Sylva on her experience of the Forum |
Reflection
Forum delegates reflect on what they heard.
Speaker biographies
Professor Kathy Sylva
Kathy Sylva is Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Oxford. She has carried out many large scale studies on the effects of Early Childhood Education and Care on children’s development. She also studies ways to support early literacy through school - and home-based programmes. She has been lead researcher on the “Effective Pre-school and Primary Education” (EPPE) study. She has published 6 books and more than 100 papers, most on early childhood, early literacy, and ways to support families.
A dominant theme throughout her work has been the impact of education and care not only on ‘academic knowledge’ but on children’s behaviour, self-regulation, and disposition to learn. A related theme in her research is the impact of early intervention on combating social disadvantage in both developed and developing countries. She has been specialist adviser to the UK Parliament’s Select Committee on Education 2000-2009 and the Scottish Parliament in 2007. In 2014-15 she was specialist advisor to the Parliament’s Select Committee on Affordable Childcare. She was awarded an OBE in 2008 for services to children and families.
Professor Sharon Todd
Sharon Todd is Professor of Education at Maynooth University. Her research is committed to pursuing social justice in, through and for education. Placing educational practice, policy and curriculum at the centre of her work, Prof Todd’s research is situated within the field of philosophy of education and is informed primarily by feminism and contemporary continental philosophy. Topics include the political and ethical aspects of education, interculturalism and diversity issues, images of femininity and masculinity in curriculum knowledge, and the importance of educational relationships for pedagogical practice.
Recent publications include; Re-imagining Educational Relationships: Ethics, Politics, Practices (co-edited with Morwenna Griffiths, Marit Hoveid and Chris Winter) Wiley Blackwell, 2015; Philosophy East/West: Exploring Intersections between Contemplative and Education Practices (Special Issue co-edited with Oren Ergas) Journal of Philosophy of Education, 2015, vol. 49, no.2; Toward an Imperfect Education (Paradigm Press, 2010).
Professor Deborah Youdell
Deborah Youdell is Professor of Sociology of Education and Director of the Public Service Academy at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores how inequalities are connected to subjectivities, everyday practices, pedagogy, institutional processes and policy, spanning issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, social class, ability and disability. A central concern of her work is how educators can practice politically to intervene in inequalities. Her work is underpinned by engagements with post-structural thinking about power, the subject, space, and the political. Key theorists include Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, as well as the work of Ernesto Laclau, Chantal Mouffe, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari.
Deborah is author of 'School Trouble: identity, power and politics in education' and 'Impossible Bodies, Impossible Selves: exclusions and student subjectivities.' She is co-author, with David Gillborn, of the award-winning book 'Rationing Education: policy, practice, reform and equity.'
From September 2015 Deborah will take up a British Academy Fellowship investigating: the body social: synthesising biology and sociology to reconceptualize student identity.
For further information please contact Deirdre Watters (01) 708 3363.