Education and Society: How do you see it?

Hilary Term Seminar Series 2009

The Centre for Comparative Education in the Department of Education and the School for Interdisciplinary Area Studies are interested in exploring the role and function of education in society. We are particularly interested in how education intersects with political economy and culture in a variety of countries. Education is a topic of interest to economists, political scientists, sociologists, anthropologists, historians, and of course educationalists, who variously experiment with possible solutions to improve its effectiveness, debate its merits in forging nationalism or democracy, or locate its place in national and local culture, both past and present.  It is clear however that the theoretical and methodological approaches applied to the study of education and educational systems are enormously varied, and are published in a wide variety of, sometimes uncomplimentary sources. Potentially therefore, large sections of the literature are not interrogated by those interested in the study of education. Moreover, studies of education in a particular country, much of it approached in a disciplinary specific way, are similarly unavailable to those with an interested in a wide range of social phenomena in a particular society.
 
This seminar series brings together a number of social scientists working on some aspect of education and society in order that they discuss their work. The aim is for presenters to elaborate on theory and method and pool intellectual resources so that students in Comparative Education and those working on education from other disciplines may benefit.

Conveners: David Johnson, Department of Education and Joe Foweraker, Head, School of Interdisciplinary Area Studies


Darendorf Room%uFF0CSt Antony’s College
Tuesdays, 5 p.m.

Convener: David Johnson