Borders & Boundaries 2018: Debating the limits and possibilities of Education

The Department of Educational Research invite international speakers every summer, and this year we are opening the event up to invite critical interdisciplinary scholars to engage in a range of events which bring together our three research centres: Higher Education Research and Evaluation; Technology Enhanced Learning; and Social Justice and Wellbeing in Education.

This year’s theme is Borders and Boundaries, which will be unpacked by our internationally renowned speakers and a programme of conference presentations on 3rd and 4th of July in the historic city of Lancaster.

Borders and Boundaries: Debating the limits and possibilities of Education

Borders and boundaries is an important theme in educational research and practice, having multiple meanings and interpretations. At one level, this notion reflects critical conceptualisations of place, territories and educational (im)mobilities which have come to the surface in recent years as a response to political and policy changes that seek to limit the movement of people and ideas. Alternatively, borders and boundaries may be taken to refer to theoretical demarcations and interactions, and the increasing emphasis on interdisciplinarity within research, and the associated instability of categories such as academic, practitioner, researcher and educator in the context of efficiency and structural changes within schools, universities and other institutions. This theme also has analytical value for framing debates about the perceived fluidity of formal and informal educational space in the digital age, simultaneously democratising knowledge and blurring the boundaries between professional and personal identities for many educators and academics. Finally, we envisage the theme of borders and boundaries as providing a way into discussions about social distinctions and emotional separations, which shape educational experiences, transitions, and outcomes in a broad range of ways.

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I have placed the conference themes within Hodges' model:

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------ Borders & Boundaries ------------------ mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

This theme also has analytical value for framing debates about the perceived fluidity of formal and informal educational space in the digital age, simultaneously democratising knowledge and blurring the boundaries between professional and personal identities for many educators and academics.	... critical conceptualisations of place,  territories ... ... borders and boundaries may be taken to refer to theoretical demarcations and interactions, and the increasing emphasis on interdisciplinarity within research, and -
Borders and boundaries is an important theme in educational research and practice, having multiple meanings and interpretations. Finally, we envisage the theme of borders and boundaries as providing a way into discussions about social distinctions and emotional separations, which shape educational experiences, transitions, and outcomes in a broad range of ways.	- the associated instability of categories such as academic, practitioner, researcher and educator in the context of efficiency and structural changes within schools, universities and other institutions.   factor immobility occupational immobility academic / educational (im)mobilities

My source: Jill Anderson, Lancaster University.