Conference Agenda

This symposium, with four papers from Southern, Eastern and Western Europe, provides a context for deepening these colleagues’ reflection on the production and use of educational ethnographic research. They bring a shared commitment to improving the lives, learning, and life chances of children and young people, and they are witness to poly-crises that cross international borders. These range from the lived realities of child poverty, social and educational exclusion, to youth detention and incarceration, and the challenges and barriers to young people’s active participation in democratic decision-making about their futures.

To guide efforts to critically understand and address these poly-crises as they find expressions locally, nationally and internationally, which suggests globally shared forms, a research question is: what are the lived experiences of children and young people in contexts of poly-crises, and how are they interpreted within their specific political-economic settings to inform policy? The main objective is to make a significant contribution to understanding educational ethnography, different ways of doing it, and its capacity to ‘make a difference’ influencing government policy. Subsidiary objectives canvass ways to formulate the narrative about the problems, causes, and consequences in such a way that it wins hearts and minds.

A common theoretical framework continues to be forged by these research-active colleagues exploring the practicalities of working with children and young people in different national settings, each with their own history, culture, language, and political economy. It also involves exploring the understandings, interpretations, explanations and analyses proffered by the children and young people involved. It is a case of accommodating different theorisations and conceptualisations, but a way forward is to articulate different perspectives with focus on values and principes. In Serbia and Poland, the two mainland European nations, the values and principles are typical of post-socialist societies, given patterns shaped by socialist legacies and transition including historical consciousness and memory sensitivity, distrust of authority and bureaucratic logics, institutional skepticism, and cautious civic participation in social transformation and evolving democratic cultures. In Wales, in or out of the UK and the EU, this is best described as a social democratic social imaginary that foregrounds equity and social justice. Taken together, they ultimately strengthen the authority of educational ethnographic research.

Of significance is the willingness of these colleagues variously located to engage in on-going discussions about their respective research projects, sharing findings, and identifying issues for critical analyses, but also suggesting opportunities for national and international policy debates. For example, a common concern is what the youth voice means for policy advocacy and policy development as well as policy implementation. Invariably, in each national setting there is evidence of the overriding influence of global trends in education and social policymaking along with their vernacular effects. It is opportune for colleagues to share their understandings of these developments and describe the ways their respective national governments have responded to globalisation but also the educational priorities of its citizenry including the needs of their children and young people.

The European/international dimension is vital to the work reported in this symposium as colleagues explore the key drivers of policy development and implementation but also their research-informed recommendations for requisite policy changes. Each of the four paper presentations cite different ethnographic research findings intended to influence policy responses in the different national and geopolitical settings. The ways this all happens in the different locations is instructive, and lessons are gleaned from reports on dialogues with practitioners, children and youth, but also politicians, policymakers and powerbrokers including decision-makers. In each case, the presenters posit diverse forms of knowledge that embrace the youth voice, practitioner knowledge, knowledge ‘from below’, and interdisciplinary knowledge.

Although authoritarian regimes are often inclined to respond to unrest with repression and violence (Tilly, 2003). Contemporary Serbia exemplifies this dynamic where civil and political freedoms are being curtailed, and democratic procedures are increasingly hollowed out with corruption on the rise. Against this backdrop, research suggests that protests can be particularly resilient in such contexts (Jerkov et al, 2025). Serbian youth have, for more than a year, engaged in diverse forms of protest action, advocating for comprehensive policy change across all levels of governance (Cini et al, 2021). There is a need for ethnographic research into the tension between the space offered by officially sanctioned bodies for students to air concerns and their need for a space to express a desire for the autonomy to articulate authentic policy proposals. Consequently, meaningful youth political engagement has largely shifted outside institutional channels, which provokes research questions: why is youth participation in Serbia regulated? how is this enshrined in numerous legal and policy documents? why the concern with the establishment of youth associations at levels ranging from local to national? how does this operate in practice? The main objective is to critically understand the contemporary student movement in Serbia, which emerged in the aftermath of the Novi Sad railway station collapse and received much publicity. A subsidiary objective is to build an understanding of political action and ways it is contextualized within a much broader framework than is typical of the country today. This understanding has two key expressions. First, students make decisions through collective deliberation in plenums and, wherever possible, extend participation to the wider public through informal citizens’ assemblies. Second, the movement seeks to increase the visibility of its goals both within the country, via protest walks and canvassing in remote areas, and outside of it (Ignjatović, 2025). The theoretical framework in informed by critical ethnography considering these student protests in relation to method, ethics and performance (Madison, 2005). The current wave of student-led protests has set itself the ambitious goal of resisting cronyism and corruption at all levels of governance (Jerkov et al., 2025). The students’ demands strike at the core of the regime’s misuse of state power, the exception being increased funding for state universities, the only one the government has engaged. This signals a readiness for limited policy adjustments while avoiding reforms that could have broader implications for governance, institutional autonomy, and political accountability (Milojević & Pantić, 2025).

Burgund Isakov, A., Gajić, M (2025). Children’s participation in decision-making in the Republic of Serbia. University of Belgrade – Faculty of Political Science. ISBN 978-86-6425-134-1 Cini, l., della Porta, D., & Guzmán-Concha, C. (eds.). (2021). Student movements in late neoliberalism: Dynamics of con-tention and their consequences. Palgrave Macmillan Ignjatović, S. (2025). Serbia’s student plenums: a blueprint for renewing democracy. BIRN, april 14. https://balkaninsight.com/2025/04/14/serbias-student-plenums-a-blueprint-for-renewing-democracy/ Jerkov, A., Bešlin, M., & Radeljić, B. (2025). The depoliticization of protest: understanding the 2024/2025 Serbian students’ uprising. Cogent Social Sciences, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2025.2583748 Madison, D.S. (2005) Critical Ethnography. Method, Ethics, and Performance. Thousand Oaks CA: Sage. Milojević, I., Pantić, N. (2025). Contesting Authoritarianism: The Role of Youth-Led Movements in Shaping Futures in Serbia. Journal of Future Studies. In press. ISSN 1027-6084 https://jfsdigital.org/contesting-authoritarianism-the-role-of-youth-led-movements-in-shaping-futures-in-serbia/ Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2009). Globalizing Education Policy. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203867396 Tilly, C. (2003). The politics of collective violence. Cambridge University Press.

In this paper I focus on ethnographic research conducted with Ukrainian children and youth in Warsaw and Wrocław schools since 2023. This work collaborates with Ukrainian psychologists through projects of the Kalejdoskop Kultur Foundation, Foundation towards Dialogue, UNICEF, providing culturally attuned psycho-educational support for war-displaced families (Markowska-Manista & Ovcharenko, 2024a, 2024b; Markowska-Manista et al., 2024). Our task was to document and amplify children and youth “in-between” realities - suspended between Ukrainian homes and provisional life on migration in Poland - while examining educational initiatives fostering agency without erasing roots, linking community mediation with schooling to counter poly-crisis exclusion. The topic centers on children’s “suspended agency” in poly-crisis limbo, highlighting what sustains their participation amid temporal uncertainty from the ongoing war. The research question is: How can ethnographic research with Ukrainian children and youth be made more participatory, enabling them to feel safe voicing their ‘in-between’ truths and influencing educational policies on belonging and diverse school communities? The intention, from long-term fieldwork across educational places, is to build evidence for policy advocacy addressing children’s challenges and exclusion (including self-exclusion) via youth-led responses generating knowledge for social change benefiting majority and minority communities. The main objective is to explore pathways supporting young refugee participants in understanding their navigation of divided worlds - nostalgia for Ukraine clashing with adaptation in Poland - through safe expressive spaces. Subsidiary objectives include enabling articulation of struggles like linguistic isolation, ‘frozen futures’, and peer hesitancy, while trialing interventions such as drawing workshops, storytelling groups, and passion development. Theoretically, I draw on Lundy’s (2007) Model of Child Participation - voice, space, audience, influence - as method for enacting Liebel’s (2012) “children’s rights from below”. This operates in postdependency contexts, treating case studies (e.g., drawings of “endless bridges” symbolizing suspension) as key to educational ethnography (Mills & Morton, 2013). I adapt Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) model to map multi-level tensions and Bhabha’s (1994) third space concept, where Ukrainian children negotiate hybrid identities between familial pressures, national honor, return expectations, and Polish schooling frameworks. Thus, these suspended voices co-design practices ‘for changes’ with educators and NGOs, exemplifying educational ethnography’s cross-national power to transform spaces into resilient ‘third spaces’ of hybrid belonging amid Europe’s poly-crises and geopolitical uncertainty (Bhabha et al., 2025).

Bhabha J., V.Digidiki Lucero, U.Markowska-Manista, (2025). Solidarity towards distress migrants: how changing frontline communities depend on states to build a new public space In: RR. Marín, D.E. Tanck, B. Menezes Queiroz & F. Staiano, Handbook on migration and human rights, Edward Elgar Publishing. Bhabha, H. (1994). The Location of Culture, Routledge, London & New York. Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Liebel, M. (2012). Children's rights from below: Cross-cultural perspectives. Springer. Lundy, L. (2007). ‘Voice’ is not enough: conceptualising Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. British educational research journal, 33(6), 927-942. Mills, D., & Morton, M. (2013). Ethnography in education, SAGE Publications Ltd. Markowska-Manista U. & O. Ovcharenko (2024a). „W mojej głowie wojna” – interwencje kryzysowe w zakresie wsparcia psychologicznego kierowane do dzieci z doświadczeniem migracji z Ukrainy, w sytuacji zagrożenia, Dziecko Krzywdzone. Teoria, Badania, Praktyka, /23(2), 108–147. Markowska-Manista U., O. Ovcharenko (2024b). Nastolatki z Ukrainy w Polsce – wyzwania w pracy psychologiczno-edukacyjnej z młodymi migrantami wojennymi, In: M. Kolankiewicz & V. Korniat (eds). Pomoc dzieciom ukraińskim w czasie wojny, Wyd. UW, Warszawa, pp. 113-137.

This paper addresses the pedagogical and sociological reality of long-term juvenile detention in Poland, situated within the broader European landscape of institutional "poly-crises" (Silova, 2010; Stenning & Hörschelmann, 2008). In Eastern European correctional systems, dominant institutional practice often relies on the rigid imposition of the "socially maladjusted" label (Snell & Eguzowa, 2016). This research explores how minors, during their years of institutionalization, navigate a system that often prioritizes control over genuine social reintegration, creating a unique and often oppressive socio-educational environment within total institutions. The following central questions guide the study: How do long-term institutionalized minors navigate, subvert, and deconstruct the stigmatizing labels imposed upon them by the state? In what ways do "whispered" micro-narratives—informal, often hidden communications—serve as a tool for maintaining individual agency? Furthermore, how does the acquisition of "system knowledge" by these youth transform their resistance from overt rebellion into sophisticated, everyday identity construction? The primary objective of this paper is to uncover and analyze the "hidden curriculum" of survival and resistance that exists beneath the surface of official rehabilitation programs. By focusing on the "youth voice," the study aims to reveal the sophisticated landscape of resistance that resides in the "whispers"—subtle linguistic and behavioral acts occurring in the margins of institutional life. The goal is to "speak truth to power" by demonstrating how the current correctional model paradoxically "educates for resistance" rather than inclusion. The theoretical foundation of this study is rooted in critical educational ethnography (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2000) and institutional ethnography of the correctional facility (Inderbitzin, 2006, Sawicki & Markowska-Manista, 2022). It builds upon previous research regarding peer structures—dyads, cliques, and gangs—in juvenile justice settings (Sawicki, 2018; Vaughn, Pettus-Davis & Shook, 2012). The framework utilizes labeling theory and the concept of total institutions (Becker, 1963; Goffman, 1961), and the resistance concept (Willis, 1997) to analyze the tension between institutional "knowing" and the minors' "acting." Methodologically, the paper draws on in-depth biographical interviews and long-term participant observation. The findings suggest that for youth in long-term detention, identity is a site of constant negotiation. By reframing their biographies against institutional labels, they transform from "objects of correction" into "subjects of their own history." This research contributes to the ECER 2026 theme "Knowing and Acting" by shifting the focus from observing "maladjustment" to listening to the "lived knowledge" of the youth.

Becker, H. S. (1963). Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press. (Classic labeling theory). Goffman, E. (1961). Asylums: Essays on the Social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. Garden City, NY: Anchor Books. Inderbitzin M. (2006). Guardians of the state’s problem children: An ethnographic study of staff members in a juvenile correctional facility, „The Prison Journal”, 86 (4), pp. 431–451. Kincheloe, J. and McLaren, P. (2000). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In: N.K. Denzin & Y.S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd edition), pp. 279-313. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Sawicki, K. (2018). Diady, kliki, gangi. Młodzież nieprzystosowana społecznie w perspektywie współczesnej pedagogiki resocjalizacyjnej. Kraków: Impuls. Sawicki, K., & Markowska-Manista, U. (Red.). (2022). Zakład Poprawczy w Białymstoku w systemie resocjalizacji z perspektywy zespołowych badań terenowych. Temida 2. Silova, I. (2010). Post-socialism is not dead: (Re)reading the global in comparative education. Bingley: Emerald Group Publishing. Snell C.& Eguzowa J. (2016). What Works with juvenile offenders. In: M. D.McShane & M.Cavanaugh (eds.) Understanding Juvenile Justice and Delinquency, (pp.298–319). Praeger Stenning, A., & Hörschelmann, K. (2008). History, Geography and Difference in the Post-socialist World. Antipode, 40(2), 312-335.

These co-authors are part of a city-wide coalition of strategic partners who came together in 2024 at the behest of the Bangor Poverty and Learning in Urban Schools (PLUS) team to secure support for ‘Rigging the Future’, its flagship local solution (see Beckett, French, Hughes and Thirsk, 2023). Their shared task going forward is to co-develop the Bangor Trade Winds project targeting the local/regional economy so that it works for local/regional communities, re-imagining Bangor’s maritime industries for the 21st Century; and the Bangor Maritime Learning Centre, which will buttress this ‘belonging economy’ with co-developed maritime learning programs interlinked with mainstream schooling and education. This is the third paper in succession where the co-authors have explored the youth voice with children and young people across the city of Bangor and the county of Gwynedd (see French, Young, Roberts, Story, and Goodier, 2026; Beckett, French, Young, Story, and Goodier, 2026). The topic in this paper remains the youth voice, but the emphasis is on exploring what it takes to sustain a working relationship with a small group of young people aged 16+ who were invited to join a working party. The research question guiding this work is ‘how do we collectively make critical ethnographic research more participatory, so young members of the team feel included and valued and learn what it means to be politically influential?’ The intention, derived from long term engagement in the field, is to win public support and political support for this collaborative and cooperative place-based response to child poverty, its causes, consequences, and effects. The main objective is to ensure the working party inclusive of young people aged 16+ come to critically understand the historical background to their contemporary lived experiences in Bangor. A subsidiary set of objectives is to encourage them to speak their own truths about identity, belonging, and their future in Bangor, including their struggles with schooling and education. In terms of a theoretical framework, these co-authors lean towards Kincheloe and McLaren’s (2000) view that critical theory finds its method in critical ethnography, and see their ongoing working party as the ‘doing’ or the performance of critical theory. We agree with Madison (2005:13) that thinking of critical theory in action is both interesting and productive. To this end, the working party, including the young people, are focussed on meeting local politicians and elected representatives about practical ways for Making Wales Work (Plaid Cymru, 2024).

Beckett, L., French, G., Hughes, C., Thirsk, G. (2023) Towards a critical understanding of Wales’s present for future generations. Ch.12 in Beckett (ed) Child Poverty in Wales: Exploring the challenges of schooling future generations. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Beckett, L., Owen, E., and Robinson, S., French, G. (2025) Family history research as method in a critical ethnography of education. Paper presented at 2025 ECER Conference in Belgrade Serbia. Beckett, L., French, G., Young, N., Story, A., Goodier, L. (2026) Children and young people in Bangor speaking their own truths to power. Paper presented to Rethinking Educational Ethnography Conference, Bangor University, 9-11 June. French, G., Young, N., Roberts, A., Story, A., Goodier, L. (2026) Tapping the youth voice for ‘belonging’ in times of inequality. Ch.3 in Beckett (ed) Child Poverty in Wales: Speaking truth to power. Cardiff: University of Wales Press. Kincheloe, J. and McLaren, P. (2000) Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. Chapter in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (Eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd edition), pp.279-313. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Menter, I. (2022) Raymond Williams and Education. History, Culture, Democracy. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Plaid Cymru (2024) Making Wales Work. Plaid Cymru’s New Economic Plan. Cardiff: Minuteman Press.