ECE 2014 - The European Conference on Education

The International Academic Forum in conjunction with its global university partners is proud to announce the Second European Conference on Education, to be held from July 9-13, 2014, at the Thistle Hotel Brighton, in the United Kingdom.
Hear the latest research, publish before a global audience, present in a supportive environment, network, engage in new relationships, experience the UK, explore Brighton, London and the South-East of England, join a global academic community…
2014 Conference Theme: Transforming and Changing Education: “Borderlands of Becoming and Belonging”
IAFOR promotes and facilitates new multifaceted approaches to one of the core issues of our time, namely globalization and its many forms of growth and expansion. Awareness of how it cuts across the world of education, and its subsequent impact on societies, institutions and individuals, is a driving force in educational policies and practices across the globe. IAFOR’s Conferences on Education have these issues at their core. The conferences present those taking part with three unique dimensions of experience, encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating heightened intercultural awareness and they promoting international exchange. In short, IAFOR’s Conferences on Education are about change and transformation. As IAFOR’s previous education conferences have shown, education has the power to transform and change whilst it is also continuously transformed and changed. The theme of transforming and changing education continues into 2014 in the European, North American and Asian Conferences on Education.
Globalized education systems are becoming increasing socially, ethnically and culturally diverse. However, education is often defined through discourses embedded in Western paradigms as globalised education systems become increasingly determined by dominant knowledge economies. Policies, practices and ideologies of education help define and determine ways in which social justice is perceived and acted out. What counts as ‘education’ and as ‘knowledge’ can appear uncontestable but is in fact both contestable and partial. Discourses of learning and teaching regulate and normalise gendered and classed, racialised and ethnicised understandings of what learning is and who counts as a learner.
In many educational settings and contexts throughout the world, there remains an assumption that teachers are the possessors of knowledge which is to be imparted to students, and that this happens in neutral, impartial and objective ways. However, learning is about making meaning, and learners can experience the same teaching in very different ways. Students (as well as teachers) are part of complex social, cultural, political, ideological and personal circumstances, and current experiences of learning will depend in part on previous ones, as well as on age, gender, social class, culture, ethnicity, varying abilities and more.
The Second European Conference on Education
In this conference ? one of a series of three to be held in 2014 on transforming and changing education ? participants are invited to explore the educational borderlands of becoming and belonging, including borderlands of geography, ‘difference’, culture, educational discourses, policies and practices, and more. This conference will explore the transformative effects of education through the borderlands of becoming and belonging, including:
Identity:
how constructs of learner identities as ‘self’ and ‘other’ are negotiated through the borderlands of becoming and belonging
how these constructs shape senses of ‘learner’ and ‘non-learner’ for marginalised individuals
Constructions of knowledge:
how understandings of ‘knowledge’ are constructed for learners and teachers through becoming and belonging
how hierarchies of ‘knowledge’ are determined and played out in educational borderlands
Transformative pedagogies:
how transformative pedagogies can be developed and sustained within and through borderlands
how learners and teachers can use education to transform and change their understandings of and engagement with becoming and belonging
The role of educational institutions:
how educational institutions endorse and/or challenge binaries belonging and unbelonging
how hidden differences and inequalities are played out in educational borderlands, and the pedagogical challenges this raises
We hope and expect the 2014 conference themes to inspire a number of research avenues, and look forward to discussing ideas, findings and synergies, in this International Academic Forum.
We hope to see you at ECE2014!
Professor Sue Jackson
ECE 2014 Co-Conference Chair
Pro-Vice-Master, Learning and Teaching,
Professor of Lifelong Learning and Gender,
Birkbeck, University of London, UK
Professor Barbara Lockee
ECE 2014 Co-Conference Chair
Professor of Instructional Design and Technology
Associate Director of Educational Research and Outreach in the School of Education
Virginia Tech, USA