Conference Agenda

ERC Opening Ceremony

This Emerging Researchers' Conference (ERC) interactive session will encourage participants to reflect on their diversity, positionality, and on their role as learners, educators and/ or researchers. In line with the ECER 2023 conference theme, this session will bring together three researchers with diverse areas of interest and expertise.

Prof. Bonnie Slade’s input will reflect her interdisciplinary research which draws on adult education, migration studies, women’s studies and arts-informed research traditions. Dr. George Head will focus on ethical considerations and dilemmas that may arise during the research process, particularly when researching ‘difficult’ subjects. Dr. Ines Alves will engage with the concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion and how these can be challenging when diversity poses challenges to our educational and research systems, and when homogeneity can often still be considered the ‘desirable norm’.

In this interactive session we aim to create a friendly environment that values diversity and which invites participants to share their thoughts and questions with the speakers and other researchers.

The presentation will explore aspects of doctoral education diversity in European higher education, consider how we identify when the level of diversity is sufficient to significantly reduce inequality and also discuss the extent to which diversity is linked to inclusivity, without which it is unlikely that much transformation will take place. The presentation will and try to assess how close to real inclusion the field is (dream versus reality). There are several ways in which diversity can be present in doctoral education and these will be explored one by one. The mere existence of diversity does not mean it has reached its highest possible level, whether in an HE system or in one institution. Similarly, it cannot be assumed that diversity is always the result of formal policies (whether external, such as national legislation, or internal to universities), as this varies considerably within and between institutions and HE systems. Diversity related to student admissions is often connected to formal policies but other forms of diversity may be accidental or serendipitous (such as diversity in relation to available supervisors). Use is made of Thomas and Ely’s (2001) model of workplace diversity which suggests three possible perspectives that can be used to encourage diversity in organisations – discrimination and fairness, access and legitimacy and integration and learning – of which they commend the last-named. Key forms of diversity include admission of a variety of doctoral researchers, by virtue of varied gender and ethnicity, disadvantage, neurodiversity, disability and candidates with social, cultural and linguistic differences. Diversity in thesis topics, methods, theory, knowledge production and thesis writing is also important, including indigenous knowledge and knowledge from the global south as well as the global north but is a project far from complete. Doctoral programmes in Europe already demonstrate considerable variation in content and curricula, methodology and transversal skills training, both within and across multiple disciplines. Diversity is also potentially visible in less formal activities like reading groups and social events. Supervision practices vary considerably, in content, regularity, solo and/or group supervision and consistency of supervision practices, especially for part-time students. Diversity amongst supervisors is a challenge, since its absence can lead to delayed thesis submission or dropout. Finally, the career routes that doctoral researchers follow may not be very diverse in some disciplines but given the precarity of many academic roles, further diversification into jobs outside higher education is really critical. It will be argued that, overall, there is much more to be done before doctoral education in Europe is fully diverse and inclusive. At the moment, it is best described as part dream, part reality. Referring to discrimination and fairness, access and legitimacy and integration and learning are all relevant ways in which universities, directors of graduate/doctoral schools and doctoral programmes can increase both diversity and inclusivity. They do not need to resort to isomorphism to do this because the same equality outcomes can be achieved in diverse ways.

ERC Closing Ceremony

European education has been witnessing unprecedented transformations with attempts to create a ‘European Higher Education Area’ (Corbett, 2005) which includes new models of higher education (HE) forcing actors to look at both the convergence and diversity in HE (Zgaga et al. 2016) in the European Union (EU). European University Alliances are leading the way for the future of HE in the EU (Charret et Chankseliani, 2022). Transformation of learning and teaching in HE can be analysed at least at two levels: a) process level, looking at the transformation in learning approaches (e.g. diversity, multilingualism, innovative pedagogies, digitally enhanced mobilities) and b) structural level (institutional landscapes, joint programs of study, curricula, micro-certification / programs, modules). While student-centred teaching and learning remain fundamental for such changes, conceptual approaches such as innovative pedagogies (Ciolan et al., 2021), ‘micro-credentials’ philosophy (Iucu et al., 2021), and virtual (digitally enhanced) mobility (Iucu et al., 2022) act as forefront drivers for the European Universities Alliances to foster pilot processes for educational innovation in HE that consider sustainability issues. Further research in education can assist such transformative teaching and learning approaches, setting the ground for better understanding how current European educational contexts are changing and what stakeholders can do to anticipate such transitions. In this post-pandemic period, HE must also reflect on its position in relation to research, societal challenges and needs, universities becoming more and more connected with civil society, labour market, and community actors.

One of the key lenses to look at this dynamic transformative process is the diversity created by these alliances from so many perspectives: people, institutions, cultures, language, professional practices. This is an objective reality and identifying best ways to make value of it should be a priority for all the stakeholders.

• What is the role of European University Alliances?

• How can university alliances better represent, respond to and value its diversity?

• How can universities respond in a balanced way to their multiple missions? (social responsibility, learning and teaching and research)

• What is the impact of these alliances on research, and teaching and learning ecosystems?

These are some of the questions that will lead the discussion of this diverse panel, which brings together representatives from the CIVIS Alliance HE institutions, to reflect on their experiences and expertise.

CIVIS is a European Civic University formed by the alliance of leading research HE institutions across Europe: Aix-Marseille Université, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, University of Bucharest, Université Libre de Bruxelles, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Sapienza Università di Roma, Stockholm University, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, University of Glasgow, Paris Lodron University of Salzburg and University of Lausanne. It brings together a community of more than 470,000 students and 58,000 staff members including 35,000 academics and researchers.

In this panel we will discuss to what extent university alliances are supposed to adapt their values and principles to a new educational and professional world, characterised by adaptability, resilience, sense of belonging, and valuing diversity. At the same time, we will address the opportunity of these alliances to promote disruptive innovation and create conditions for a new landscape of the European Higher Education Area, based on cooperation and collaboration, and embedding diversity as an integral part of this construction. Early reflection and reflective research on the aims and processes of evolution of higher education under this European initiative are essential to allow further calibration of decisions and priorities for future development.

In this presentation I take a feminist materialist stance to critically examine posthumanism’s claims to be an ontological, epistemological and ethical praxis for producing powerful, new, transdisciplinary educational knowledge. I explore posthumanism’s alliances with a series of other ‘posts’ - post-qualitative, postcolonial, post-disciplinary, post-critical, post-foundational research, and how posthumanism builds on and extends insights from feminism. I address the central question: What is the posthuman imaginary and what are its promises and problematics for educational research? In this, I consider posthumanism’s claims to generate new conceptualisations of, and ways of researching, curricula, pedagogy and assessment.

The last 20 years have seen posthumanism gaining increasing traction in a wide variety of knowledge fields. It is, as Ferrando (2020: 1) notes, ‘the philosophy of our time’. In educational research, posthumanism raises sharp questions about knowledge, power, responsibility and justice. This is because it fundamentally shifts the terms of the debate regarding human subjectivity, the production of knowledge, and human-nature relations. Posthumanism is not about eliminating humans or using science to go beyond or ‘improve’ humans. At its heart, posthumanism is a critical project of and for social, ecological and educational change. Posthumanism’s four core aims are to: a) displace the ‘Man’ of Western Humanism; b) undermine the claims of species exceptionalism that have done such devastating damage to our planet and all the life forms on it; c) dislodge dehumanising, damaging binaries and boundaries that colonialism and global capitalist ‘progress’ are founded upon; and d) promote more relational and inclusive practices. Posthumanism questions the rationalistic, individualistic, metricised, performative and competitive assumptions that underpin much mainstream educational research.

Posthumanism’s advocates offer passionate and compelling arguments as to why educational research – and its practices of colonialist knowledge extraction, normative citational politics, and epistemic reproduction of the same – needs to change. Posthumanism’s opponents argue that its own erasures work to reproduce the White epistemic injustices it purports to displace. Amidst this critique and promise, key questions challenge posthumanist researchers: What theoretical and practical resources does posthumanism offer in terms of how change is to be effected in educational practice? How are posthumanist claims for ‘doing knowledge differently’ being enacted in educational research? And what evidence exists to indicate that posthumanist educational research is making any difference in addressing injustices?

From an engaged feminist materialist posthumanist stance, I argue that posthumanism can expand our research horizons through a new ethics of engagement in the politics of knowledge, that its orientations to transdisciplinarity can produce new knowledge imaginaries concerning what counts and who matters; and that it has the potential to summon into being more affirmative educational futures.

As Dominic Wyse pointed out in his BERA Blog (Wyse, 2020) educational research in Scotland, as in other parts of the UK, has been criticised as being relatively weak in comparison to research from other disciplines. He also notes that some of the criticisms for this ‘weakness’ is due to education not being seen as an academic discipline (Wyse, 2020). We would reject this criticism because for almost 50 years, the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) has championed the need for high-quality educational research in Scotland. From its early days in the mid-1970s, the fundamental tenets of SERA have been to "(i)…disseminate research findings on as wide a basis as possible and (ii) to improve communication among those working in different areas of the research field" (Nisbet, 1984). Fifty years on, we are proud that these tenets, while slightly revised for the current age, continue to remain at the core of the present-day SERA and remain as part of our overall purpose: ‘Working for the improvement of education through promoting and sustaining high-quality educational research’.  We would argue that our reach and engagement as an association has grown considerably, with SERA enjoying strong partnerships with our sister associations in the UK and Ireland as well as being an established member of both the European Educational Research Association (EERA) and the World Educational Research Association (WERA).   

The principal vehicle of discussion and dissemination of our work has always been the annual SERA Conference, attracting a broad church of academic researchers, practitioners, policy makers and those in local and national government positions and encouraging them to contribute to and participate in high-quality discussions around education and educational research. Since the early days of the Association, SERA has evolved, moving from a one-day conference to a three-day event which attracts high numbers of delegates each year.   

The events of 2020 and the subsequent effects of the global pandemic did bring challenges to SERA, but also afforded opportunities, particularly through digital technology.  The value of technology, particularly in facilitating professional learning communities, had been noted well before the pandemic (see Blitz, 2013), however, until this time it was arguably a resource with untapped potential. The pandemic also gave room for the Executive to reflect upon the democratic nature of educational research and how best we, as an Association, seek to a) meet the aims of our association and b) foster an increased sense of community within educational research in Scotland and beyond. Central to these reflections and critical discussions have been the SERA Networks who actively and adeptly identify and capitalise on opportunities to influence policy and practice.    

Another contributor to this evolution is our SERA Networks, nine special interest groups with a range of foci on ‘hot topics’ in educational research nationally and internationally. Our Networks have always been strong proponents of the work of SERA and its charitable aims but truly came to the fore during the pandemic.

This symposium aims to highlight the current hot topics in Scottish education by sharing the work of three of our SERA Networks: Inclusive Education, Poverty and Early Years. These three papers will illustrate the ways in which our SERA colleagues are able to engage SERA members in deep and critical discussions but also look to influence policy and practice. The symposium is framed through the perspective of working together through partnerships and will also look to explore potential next steps which can be taken by SERA.  

One of the main aims of the Poverty and Education network is to highlight issues and new research in the impact of poverty on education.  The impact of poverty and deprivation on education is important in the context of Scotland as school education attempts to negotiate the challenges of educating children and young people who belong to low-income families and who can suffer the effects of limited financial resource and consequent detrimental effects on diet, housing, adequate fuel and restricted access to cultural capital. There are serious concerns about the educational progress of these children and young people and their future opportunities or destinations. Deeper research engagement with the impact of poverty on education is a matter of urgency.    During the pandemic, many school systems throughout the world adopted online, or hybrid models of learning and teaching during periods of restricted access to schools and during school closures. However, this served to highlight digital exclusion (or digital poverty). UNICEF reported that around 1.6 billion children worldwide were affected by school closures and had to continue their learning at home (UNICEF, 2020). The success of moves to online provision was determined by the (1) technology and the technological infrastructure and (2) the skill set of teachers and pupils required to support such a move. Children and young people living in poverty and deprivation in Scotland were most affected by the move to online learning and teaching because of the ‘digital gap’ (Audit Scotland, 2021). It is simplistic to conceive the digital gap as a binary distinction between digital inclusion and digital exclusion. The digital gap exists in different ways and to different degrees (Coleman, 2021). We have identified five key areas that characterise the digital gap in Scotland in relation to the learning of children and young people:   (1) access to devices;   (2) learning space;   (3) connectivity;   (4) digital literacy and   (5) parental engagement.  This presentation will discuss the implications of the digital gap in Scotland for current and future cohorts of children in Scottish schools. We will examine these five key areas that characterise the digital gap and we will also draw on ongoing research by the Network for Social and Educational Equity (NSEE) team at the Robert Owen Centre in the University of Glasgow. 

Audit Scotland (2021). Improving Outcomes for Young People through School Education. Available from:  https://www.audit-scotland.gov.uk/uploads/docs/report/2021/nr_210323_education_outcomes.pdf   Coleman, V. (2021). Digital Divide in UK education during Covid-19 pandemic: Literature Review, Cambridge Assessment. Available from:  https://www.cambridgeassessment.org.uk/Images/628843-digital-divide-in-uk-education-during-covid-19-pandemic-literature-review.pdf   UNICEF (2020) How Many children and Young People have internet access at home?  https://data.unicef.org/resources/children-and-young-people-internet-access-at-home-during-covid19/ 

The SERA Inclusive Education Network is an active network that supports SERA’s work, influencing policy and practice, contributing to current debates in Scotland and internationally. We view inclusive education as an approach aiming to ensure that all learners, regardless of background or characteristics, can access and participate fully in quality education. Since 1978, when the Warnock report was published, Scotland has tried to implement legislation and policy that supports young learners. Our understanding about concepts of learning, teaching and inclusion has evolved over the years and this is illustrated in policy too. A raft of legislation, policy and guidance including the Additional Support for Learning Act 2004 (amended in 2009 and 2017) and the National Framework for Inclusion (SUIG 2022) promote inclusive education and position Scotland at the forefront of the development of inclusive practice internationally.   The SERA Inclusive Education network provides a forum to support the development of inclusive practice by informing and influencing debates on current issues in Scotland such as the presumption of mainstreaming, gender identity, race. This network aims to develop wider awareness of inclusive education informing and influencing academic, professional and public debates. It provides opportunities to meet and engage with a wide range of stakeholders including academics, students and practitioners. Additionally, the Inclusive Education network look to pursue partnerships with other national groups, including the Scottish Universities Inclusion Group (SUIG). A central theme from the network’s academic conversations with SUIG is the National Framework for Inclusion (SUIG 2022) which is internationally unique as it recognizes teachers as autonomous and creative professionals who have the capacity to critically reflect on their pedagogical decisions and identify approaches to promote children’s inclusion.

Scottish Universities Inclusion Group (SUIG). 2022. National Framework for Inclusion 3rd edn. Aberdeen, The Scottish Universities Inclusion Group. https://www.gtcs.org.uk/professional-standards/national-framework-for-inclusion/  

The SERA Early Years Network provides room for discussion and reflection at the interface between research, policy and practice; a home for practitioners to critically engage with the latest findings. broadly defined in the Scottish context, early years, as includes early learning and childcare (ELC), the first years of school, childcare for school-aged children and specialist or community-based provision. The network adopts an inclusive approach which fosters an ongoing sector-wide conversation that draws on evidence-based perspectives from within settings and local organisations, as well as national and internationally recognised voices. The use of an online format for Network seminars over the last 3 years has facilitated access of a wider range of members to these emerging research findings and new approaches. The Network opened discussions regarding early years workforce experiences of key-working through the pandemic, with international researchers reflecting on the varied experiences in each country.  Comparison of these varied national responses highlighted that the lockdown period occurred in the middle of what was already a tumultuous time for the ELC sector in Scotland, with the doubling of government funded ELC hours for all children aged 3-5 years (Scottish Government, 2022).  The notion of ‘school readiness’ is pressing issue for the early years sector, particularly given recent Scottish Government commitments to raising the school starting age. In the Scottish EY context, research around the importance of well-managed and supported transitions (Burns, 2022; Dunlop, Barnes and McRobbie, 2023) underpins the practice guidance ‘Realising the ambition: Being me’ (Education Scotland, 2020) and is turning the narrative of ‘school-readiness’ around so that all children are included and supported effectively by ‘ready-schools’.  This connects to work translating the international body of research on play to identify play pedagogies relevant to both Scottish childcare and school settings ( Black, 2023; Dunlop, Burns and McNair, 2023) as well as some lively debates about the place of play within the school day (Ardelean et al, 2021; Knight, 2023) in Network meetings, which in turn leads back to considering the role of practitioners in supporting children’s development and wellbeing.  With a continuously expanding membership, the Network is well positioned to bring together practitioners, and local, national and international researchers, giving recognition to the value of insights from practitioner research and work-based projects as well as external perspectives.  Looking forward, we are keen to keep unpacking ideas and making new connections. 

Ardelean, A., Smith, K. and Russell, W. (2021) The case for play in schools: A review of the literature, Bristol: Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL) CIC.   Black, E. (2023) ‘Playful pedagogy’, in M. Carroll and M. Wingrave (eds), Childhood Practice: A reflective and evidence-based approach. London: SAGE Publications, pp. 165 - 178.   Burns, M. (2022). ‘Ready or Not to Adopt a Pedagogy of Play for Children Starting School in Scottish Primary Schools - Is this a Major Transition for Teachers?’ International Journal of Educational and Life Transitions, 1(1): 5, pp. 1–16. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5334/ijelt.28.  Dunlop, A-W, Barnes, L. and McRobbie, M. (2023). Transitions in Early Childhood Education and Care: Across Time and Day-to-Day, in Nutbrown, C. (Ed.) Early Childhood Education- Current realities and future priorities, 71-82. London: SAGE publications Ltd.  Dunlop, A-W, Burns, M. and McNair, L.J. (2023). Play Pedagogies. Early Education Journal, Centenary Issue 1, April 2023.  Education Scotland (2020) Realising the ambition: Being me @ https://education.gov.scot/media/3bjpr3wa/realisingtheambition.pdf (accessed 10/3/23).  Knight, S. (2023) The case for play in schools, SERA Early Years Network presentation, February 2023.  Scottish Government (2022) Early learning and childcare expansion programme: Evaluation strategy @ https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/research-and-analysis/2022/10/early-learning-childcare-expansion-programme-evaluation-strategy/documents/early-learning-childcare-expansion-programme-evaluation-strategy-scottish-government-children-families-analysis/early-learning-childcare-expansion-programme-evaluation-strategy-scottish-government-children-families-analysis/govscot%3Adocument/early-learning-childcare-expansion-programme-evaluation-strategy-scottish-government-children-families-analysis.pdf  (accessed 10/3/23). 

Scotland has invested heavily in reviewing and reforming its national infrastructure for education. This has included significant reviews (eg. OECD, 2015) which have led to internal reviews of the national architecture of the system (Muir 2022) and the assessment and qualification system (Hayward, 2023). The Muir review has triggered a national discussion to ascertain stakeholder views about the education system, facilitated by Professors Campbell and Harris.

Introduction

Utilising Scotland as a system-wide case study of change, the purpose of this panel session is to explore contemporary educational reform by drawing out the emerging lessons from the process. The Session is framed around the following three questions:

• What processes support and hinder the process of educational reform?
• How can these barriers to educational reform be mitigated and facilitators associated with successful reform be accelerated?
• What are the emerging lessons from this case study and what are the implications for educational reform across educational systems in developed democracies such as Europe?

The session will explore the ‘evidence’ used to inform reform including research evidence, international experience and insight and engagement and consultation with stakeholders across the system.

Structure and content

Four short provocations will be used as a stimulus for discussion. First, Professor Ken Muir will reflect on the process and recommendations that he made in his influential review of Scottish education. The report makes 21 recommendations, many of which relate to the replacement of the Scottish Qualifications Authority, the national accreditation and awarding body for Scotland; the reform of Education Scotland, the executive agency tasked with improving the quality of the country's education system; and re-establishing an independent Inspectorate of education. Research for the report involved extensive consultation with a wide range of stakeholders. The responses received from learners, practitioners and others clearly indicated that significant reform to Scottish education was required, well beyond structural changes.

Second, Professor Louise Hayward will outline the consultative process adopted by the Hayward review to propose a new model for qualifications and assessment for the senior phase of education in Scotland. The new system will adopt an approach that replaces the current public examination system for fifteen- to seventeen-year-olds. This has involved an examination of the international literature and consultation with researchers, academics and policymakers from systems around the world to develop potential models for a new assessment and qualification system for the Scottish education system. In addition, this process has involved significant engagement and consultation with those involved in providing, using, and receiving qualifications in an attempt to ensure integrity and quality of the proposed model.

The third and fourth provocations are designed to tease out the learning and implications for impact on the system and beyond. First, Stephen and White will consider the implications for the teaching profession in terms of building professional trust (Cruess, Johnston and Cruess, 2004). Taking both a policy and practitioner perspective Stephen and White offer insider views of what the reviews and their associated reforms might mean to the profession and the basis of a social contract between a profession and society. The final input draws on Learning is Scotland’s Future? (Chapman and Donaldson, 2023) to highlight the barriers to system change and the conditions that may support cultural change and the implementation of these well-intended but challenging developments within Scottish education and the implications for education systems change more broadly across education systems in developed democracies such as those found across Europe.

These provocations will act as a stimulus for the panel session with the participants to explore the three key questions. This will be chaired and facilitated by Campbell and Harris, convenors of Scotland’s National Discussion.

Modern education systems globally tend to be characterised by homogeneity. Transnational educational discourses, propagated by supranational organisations such as the OECD and the World Bank, exhibit a sameness – in respect of language, fundamental ideas and methodologies (Priestley & Biesta, 2012; Lingard & Priestley, 2023). Manifest trends include a focus on so-called 21^st Century Skills, instrumental approaches to utilising knowledge (as something to be mobilised), personalisation and choice in learning, use of performance data, and school/teacher autonomy. These discourses further translate into homogeneity in terms of national curricular policy frameworks, with notable outliers such as England (with its recent ‘knowledge turn’) – research suggests that many such policies are reflective of supranational language and discourses (e.g., see Sinnema & Aitken, 2013; Priestley et al., 2023). Within national systems, the situation seems more complex, as homogeneity in national policies can mask considerable differences in enactment between different countries, as policy is heavily mediated by traditions of national provision and pedagogy (e.g., see Alvunger et al., 2021). Nevertheless, some research suggests that there can be considerable homogeneity within national systems (e.g., Shapira et al., 2023), as schools and other institutions enact practices shaped by particular structural and cultural conditions (e.g., national accountability systems).

In this keynote, I argue for the importance of local curricula – for example in schools and classrooms – that are both culturally diverse and responsive to the needs of communities. I will explore how more heterogeneous curriculum making that better meets the educational needs of young people and local communities might be engendered through a systemic approach to engaging with diverse voices. I utilise a framework (Priestley et al., 2021) developed to understand the multifarious social practices of curriculum making that occur across different sites of activity in education systems. For instance, I will consider the roles that young people, their families and community groups might play in culturally responsive micro (e.g., the development of programmes in schools) and nano curriculum making (the transactional curriculum events that occur minute by minute in classrooms and other educational settings through pedagogy). I will also examine how educational professionals such as teachers might engage more constructively with macro curriculum making – including the formation of policy frameworks – and meso curriculum making, for example to support colleagues in developing the curriculum across clusters of schools. This systemic understanding is necessary if we are to develop educational systems that are both responsive to the diverse needs of young people and their communities and provide appropriate levels of regulation and support for curriculum making in local sites.

The worldwide pandemic prompted unprecedented school closures and disruption for children and their teachers. However, this also meant that student teachers (preservice teachers) found themselves confronted by the need for the development of diverse forms of distance learning rather than teaching face to face in classrooms during practicums (Hamilton et. al., under review). This dramatic disruption to standard TE practices across the world created a space for potential innovation or even radical shifts with regard to the nature of school experience and should perhaps encourage us to rethink the nature and form of TE and its practicum components (Darling-Hammond and Hyler, 2020).

Within Scotland, substantial thought had gone into a review of TE in 2011 which reflected both a holistic notion of the teacher and her/his principles and values as well as structured competencies; the latter a common theme in 21^st century TE across the world (Pantic & Wubbels, 2010). Since the 90s, governments and other agencies involved in the education of new teachers have striven to identify measurable markers of quality. A common means of doing this has been with use of specific standards/benchmarks that new teachers could be measured against in order to establish a level of quality which would be acceptable to policy and other stakeholders. These competencies provide drivers which shape student teachers to show the specific behaviours and, to some extent, common values that society believes are important in developing the ‘good’ teacher (Pantic & Wubbels, 2010). However,the moment of opportunity created by the pandemic and lock downs, for a possible rethinking of aspects of TE, has prioritised practical responses and the development and use of technology (Carillo & Flores, 2020). Those involved in Teacher education, preservice teachers, school mentors and university tutors, were struggling to survive heavy workloads and the need for intensive pastoral support. Research carried out within the four countries of the UK and across Europe (Hamilton et. al., under review; Ellis et. al. 2020) highlighted the need for adaptation and flexibility on the part of student teachers during this traumatic period but there does not seem to be evidence yet of transformational thinking about Teacher Education experiences in a more fundamental way.

Along with the technical elements that so many Education systems rely on to help grasp teacher quality through functional competencies, we are in danger of accepting the absence of the more nebulous aspects of teaching; the emotional, relational, epistemological and transformative qualities which help to shape a teacher, and which are unique to each. Having survived the uncertainty and ambiguity of a pandemic, should we return to prioritisation of competency-led approaches to the education of new teachers, or should we embrace a more holistic and humanist engagement with them?

In this symposium, we propose to establish a picture of key challenges caused by numerous lock downs in the four countries of the UK and elsewhere during the recent pandemic and our responses to what we believe is a need for transformative conceptualisations of TE that engage with teaching not as a competency-controlled profession but as an exciting endeavour or as a transformational process steeped in values connected with the artistry of teaching and social justice.

Researchers from many countries have looked at Teacher Education, especially the practicum during the pandemic (Ellis et. al., 2020; Winter et. al., 2021) charting the emotional turmoil experienced by preservice teachers and the strategies to confound lockdowns across the world. Here, I will draw on ideas emerging from a study of four countries (Scotland, England, N. Ireland and Wales) which explored the reflections of Teacher Educators involved with student teacher practicums before during and after the pandemic (Hamilton et.al. under review 2023). Underpinning this work, was our hope that, the pandemic and its impact on schools and student teachers might have encouraged some to revisit and perhaps even reconceptualise approaches to the education of Preservice Teachers (Darling-Hammond & Hyler, 2020). My aim is to initiate discussion around the key narratives driving these Teacher Educators and the questions which are raised when TE is built upon strong technicist views of teaching rather than more holistic conceptions of the ‘good’ teacher. Questions raised by this research cover a wide range of topics: the nature of partnership, the emotional and relational aspects of Preservice Teacher development, the need for adaptable and flexible professionalism, lack of enculturation into the school community and possible communities of practice and, importantly, the limited relationship-building feasible with children during this time. Only one Teacher Educator spoke of the need to revitalise or innovate to ensure that Preservice Teachers in the future were prepared with the necessary skills and resilience in order to meet possible future disruptions such as another pandemic. The digital divide in terms of families and children lacking the hardware necessary to benefit from the technology being embraced by schools or the means to pay for access to the web was not raised explicitly here but this remains a concern for any future developments in the form of hybrid or technology-based forms of teaching and learning. Ethical dilemmas did not appear to be acknowledged by most participants, but lack of fundamental resources is a powerful marker of inequity during this unprecedented period. At this juncture, Teacher Educators internationally may find themselves being recaptured by existing structures and competencies. However, this also presents us with moments and spaces for some radical rethinking if we are prepared to discuss alternative ways forward.

Darling-Hammond, L., & Hyler, M. E. (2020) Preparing educators for the time of COVID ... and beyond, European Journal of Teacher Education, 43:4, 457-465, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1816961 Ellis, V., Steadman, S., & Mao, Q. (2020) ‘Come to a screeching halt’: Can change in teacher education during the COVID-19 pandemic be seen as innovation? European Journal of Teacher Education, 43:4, 559-572, DOI: 10.1080/02619768.2020.1821186 Gandolfi, H. & Martin Mills (2022): Teachers for social justice: exploring the lives and work of teachers committed to social justice in education, Oxford Review of Education, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2022.2105314 Hamilton, L., McFlynn, P., Beauchamp, G., Hulme, Moira, Campbell, A. (under review 2023) The practicum during and after the pandemic: exploring the perceptions of Teacher Educators on post-graduate initial teacher education programmes in the UK. Winter, E., Costello, A., O’Brien, M., & Hickey, G. (2021) Teachers’ use of technology and the impact of Covid-19, Irish Educational Studies, 40:2, 235-246, DOI: 10.1080/03323315.2021.1916559

In 2021 the Dutch government launched a national covid recovery plan for education (www.nponderwijs.nl). The plan offered schools and colleges significant amounts of money, but only if they were to select one or more ‘interventions’ from a prescribed ‘menu.’ This menu, so the government claimed, only contained interventions that had scientifically be proven to be effective. While the pandemic may have had an impact on the educational careers of children and young people and while, from this angle, it is laudable that the government provided extra resources, the key problem with the chosen approach is that it framed education entirely in terms of interventions that are supposed to produce measurable effects. Such a technical or, as I prefer, technicist depiction of education and the work of teachers has become near-hegemonic in many countries and settings (for a recent analysis of this in England see Hordern & Brooks 2023; see also Thomas 2021). This is not just amongst policy makers and politicians, but also amongst researchers who are keen to provide education with ‘useful knowledge,’ and even amongst teachers who believe that with more research, including their own, they can make their teaching more effective. While this may sound attractive, there is a growing consensus that such a quasi-causal depiction of education actually amounts to a misrepresentation of education and the work of teachers. Perhaps this ongoing misrepresentation is partly due to the lack of a robust alternative; an alternative that at the very least is able to expose the assumptions entailed in educational technicism and open them up for critical scrutiny. In my presentation I will argue that the idea of the artistry of teaching provides such an alternative understanding of the dynamics of education and the work of the teacher. This is not a new idea (see particularly Stenhouse 19988; Eisner 2022), but it is worth reconsidering in light of the ongoing (re)turn to technicist conceptions of education. To talk about artistry in the context of teaching is not to suggest that teaching is an artistic endeavour, but rather to highlight the importance of seeing teaching as a craft and understanding that the efficacy of teaching is aesthetic, not mechanical. In my presentation I will outline how the idea of the artistry of teaching can be helpful in overcoming the mistaken attractiveness of educational technicism.

Eisner, E. (2002). From episteme to phronesis to artistry in the study and improvement of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education 18, 375—385. Hordern, J. & Brooks, C. (2023): The core content framework and the ‘new science’ of educational research, Oxford Review of Education, DOI: 10.1080/03054985.2023.2182768 Stenhouse, L. (1988). Artistry and teaching: The teacher as a focus of research and development. Journal of Curriculum and Supervision 4, 43—51. Thomas, G. (2021). Experiment’s persistent failure in education inquiry, and why it keeps failing. British Educational Research Journal 47, 501—519.

At the end of 2019, I returned to Scotland and to an academic role leading one of the new and ‘innovative’ teacher education programmes (Scottish Government, 2016). The MSc Transformative Learning and Teaching, is a two-year, initial teacher education programme designed from a social justice perspective and working to produce graduates who position themselves as activist teachers (Sachs, 2003). Activist teachers are those for whom teaching is a critical and political endeavour (Apple, 2014; hooks, 1994), who seek to make education transparent and accessible and who engage productively and respectfully with the communities in which their learners live, acting as educators and advocates for their pupils (Kennedy, 2018). The programme is unique in Scotland, being the first programme to enable beginning teachers to qualify with a Masters award and the only programme to prepare teacher for the primary/secondary transition qualifying graduates to teach as either generalist teachers in Nursery to Secondary 3, or as subject specialists in Primary 5 – Secondary 6. Since its inception there has been some resistance to a teacher education programme that qualifies graduates to teach across the transition, a boundary of disadvantage and a site of injustice where children from more affluent background fair better (Scottish Children’s Reporter: Statistical Analysis, 2021) and the programme was first described as an alternative route into teaching (Scottish Government, 2020). In Scotland all ITE programmes are required to undergo re-accreditation by the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS) and as we prepare for this, reflecting on five cohorts of graduates and the experience of teacher education during the Covid pandemic I share our experience of transformative teaching and learning and consider my practices as a teacher educator. Drawing on Barad’s (2003) concept of ‘re-turning’ a construct grounded in feminism, I take a temporal view of shifts in perspective to allow for new ways of looking at familiar questions: What should we as teacher educators know and how should we teach in order to prepare teachers for a world characterized by increasing diversity, economic disparity and inequality, and as is commonplace throughout the world increasing intolerance? Like hooks (1994, 12) I believe that ‘the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility in the academy’ and in this paper I will consider how such practices are enacted and finally share how the pedagogy is experienced – by everyone involved - beginner teachers, teacher educators and our school partners.

Apple, M. (2014). Official Knowledge: Democratic Education in a Conservative Age (3rd edition). Abingdon, Routledge. Barad, Karen. (2003). “Posthumanist Performativity. Toward an Understanding of How Matter Comes to Matter.” Signs 28, 3: 801-831. Hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York, NY: Routledge. Kennedy, A. (2018) Developing a new ITE programme: a story of compliant and disruptive narratives across different cultural spaces, European Journal of Teacher Education, 41:5, 638-653. Sachs, J. (2003). The activist teaching profession. Buckingham: Open University Press. Scottish Government (2016) Delivering Excellence and Equity in Scottish Education: A Delivery Plan for Scotland. Edinburgh: Scottish Government. Scottish Children's Reporter. Statistical analysis 2020/21: ensuring positive futures for children & young people in Scotland; 2021. Available at: www.scra.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/SCRA-Full-Statistical- Analysis-2020-21.pdf (accessed 17 November 2022) Scottish Government Press Release. (2020, February). Advice and guidance: Alternative routes into teaching. Edinburgh: Scottish Government.

Education remains one of the most effective means we have to improve the life chances of all of children and young people, and the right to and goals of education are enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). In Scotland, almost one in four children are officially recognised as living in poverty (Scottish Government, 2023a). A significant proportion of these children, 69% (170,00), are living in working households (Scottish Government, 2023a). There are specific households with children who are known to be at a higher risk of poverty. These include households with single parents, 3+ children, disabled household members, of a minority ethnic background, with children under one or a mother uner 25 (Scottish Government, 2023a). The Scottish Attainment Challenge was launched in 2015 with the mission of closing the poverty-related attainment gap with funding of £750 million over the parliamentary term. In 2021 the programme was refreshed with the support of a further £1billion over the next parliamentary term until 2026. This session will consider the evolution of the programme from its inception in 2015 through a global pandemic and to the current day, including the rationale for its new amended mission:

“to use education to improve outcomes for children and young people impacted by poverty, with a focus on tackling the poverty-related attainment gap.“

Much has been learned in the implementation of the Scottish Attainment Challenge and so the session will consider the impact of some of these, such as:

• governance
• funding structures which have responded proactively to research and feedback from education senior leaders and practitioners
• role of Attainment Advisors in leading, supporting and challenging progress in the programme at various levels of the system including class, school, local authority and national
• research strategy and the associated monitoring and reporting mechanisms around impact
• involving others and ensuring children’s voices are a central tenet of the programme, including those identified with additional support needs

The impact of the Scottish Attainment Challenge and its approaches has been the subject of many news articles, research and blogs. However what is obvious from all is that there is no one solution to tackling poverty-related attainment gaps (Poverty Alliance, 2021). As there are multiple causes and consequences of poverty-related attainment gaps, so there needs to be multiple and various supports to address and mitigate against these gaps. The Scottish Attainment Challenge Logic Model released in 2021, supports this notion (Scottish Government, 2021a) with its theory of change exemplifying the various approaches to making a difference depending on the context. The session will consider the impact evidence through the lens of the Scottish Attainment Challenge 5 year progress report (Scottish Government, 2021b), the impact of COVID (Scottish Government, 2021c) and how this dovetails with research from other sources such as The Poverty Alliance (2021), EEF research such as that on Pupil Premium (2022) and lessons learned (2018), Audit Scotland (2021), etc. It will also look at the new approach being taken to evidence impact using a more real-time approach to collating data (Scottish Government 2022). The session will conclude with details of next steps being implemented across the system to improve outcomes for children and young people affected by poverty and tackling poverty-related attainment gaps in Scotland.

In February, the European Parliament decided to ban the sales of petrol and diesel cars in the EU from 2035 to move to electric cars. This choice followed a set of deliberations for accelerating the shift to a low-carbon economy and combating climate change. The decision mirrors a growing sensibility towards ecological issues, a new key direction in many European policy documents in this new normality of the post-pandemic.

Making Europe green and the first neutral climate continent is one of the top priorities of Next Generation EU, the most crucial strategy and financial document to renew the dream of a common European space. This orientation is not singular, as it follows the 2030 Agenda and the ongoing attempts of COPs of the UN to find global strategies and initiatives for moving towards sustainable development.

The climate crisis requires reshuffling the debate on the relationship between the economy, society, and education. Classic modern education configurations are challenged to give due attention to education and its relationship with the Anthropocene and the devastating consequences of climate change. Modern education is not neutral. It played a role in the Anthropocene: it has often nurtured and sustained models of development that led to the current regime of the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Education fed the human desire for unlimited expansion and control, with increasing and often irreversible harmful effects on the planet. While these challenges of the Anthropocene are widely debated and have led to social movements and the restructuring of political agendas, they are not discussed with the same emphasis in the field of education.

This Moot intends to remedy this gap and provoke a debate among educational scholars on these crucial issues. After an introduction to the theme, the Moot will invite participants to address the following questions:

1. Is the current crisis of the Anthropocene a sign of a more profound cultural crisis? To what extent has modern education been implicated in this crisis?
2. Is it time for a green education in Europe and elsewhere? To what extent education policy and practice have addressed this green turn?

Program

Introduction. Iveta Silova (online if possible), Zsusa Millei and Noah Sobe. Debate