International Geographies of Education

(Convenors: Michael Hoyler; Prof. Morag Bell; Dr Heike Jöns; Dr Elizabeth Mavroudi; Dr Adam Warren)

Internationalisation in education has received considerable academic and policy attention in recent years. Much research has focused on its significance for higher education but a trend to increased internationalisation is also visible in other stages of educational provision. This strand of the Geographies of Education conference considers both the discursive and material production of transnational educational spaces, and the flows (of ideas, people and artefacts) that bind these spaces together in wider networks and relations.

Potential topics on transnational educational spaces include:

• The reconfiguration of transnational educational spaces

• Globalisation and the construction of transnational ‘educational hubs’

• Internationalisation through branch campuses

• Discursive strategies to develop and promote ‘knowledge nodes’

• International rankings and competition in education

• Exclusion and inclusion in transnational educational spaces.

Potential topics on transnational flows and networks include:

• International migration of academic staff, teachers and students

• Changing geographies of academic travel

• International geographies of staff and student exchange

• The formation of transnational educational networks

• Geographies of transnational research collaboration

• Geographies of international teaching collaboration.

Please send abstracts (maximum 200 words) for this theme to Michael Hoyler (M.Hoyler@lboro.ac.uk) by 29th February 2012.

Education, Cities, and States

(Convenor: Dr Darren Smith; Dr Ed Brown; Dr Jon Cloke; Dr Kate Gough; and Dr John Harrison)

As new and (re)developed education and learning spaces are (re)produced within the majority of post-industrial towns and cities, and other dimensions of the built environment are used by learners (e.g. housing, retail, workplaces), the production and maintenance of education-related urban development is increasingly a leading-edge factor in the restructuring of urban space. These developments are intensified via the quest to nurture knowledge-based economies and cultures, and to create sustainable urban environments and societies. In this strand of the conference, we wish to explore how urban spaces and places are being reconfigured by the production and consumption of new and existing education-related spaces, ranging from higher and further education establishments to language schools, schools and academies, nurseries and crèches, and so on.

Papers are sought that focus on:

The linkages between education and urban change, including themes such as:

• Urban regeneration and policy

• Sustainable urban environments

• Low carbon economies

• Purpose-built new-build developments

• Urban decline and abandonment

• Green-belts (campus extensions)

• Regional economies and governance

• Public and private services

The linkages between education and urban life, including themes such as:

• Neighbourhood change (studentification, gentrification)

• Sustainable and mixed communities

• Changing population structures, densities and transience

• Sense of place / place-marketing

• Labour market and employment

• Leisure and cultural consumption

• Retail and recreation.

Please send abstracts (maximum 200 words) for this theme to Dr Darren Smith (D.P.Smith@lboro.ac.uk) by 29th February 2012.

Student-Centred Geographies of Education

(Convenors: Prof. Sarah Holloway; Dr Louise Holt; Dr Jen Lea; and Dr Helena Pimlott-Wilson)

Researchers in geographies of education are paying increasing attention both to the perspectives of students and their families, and to the ways ideas about them shape education provision and consumption (Holloway et al, 2010). This two-fold agenda is explored across the globe in diverse educational settings from pre-school to university, as well as in family and alternative learning spaces.

First, this stream engages with research which explores the importance of student experiences of education and learning. Potential topics include but are not limited to:

• Education and the forging of pupils’ and students’ identities

• Experiences of formal and informal spaces of education

• Access to, and movement between, learning environments

• Education, young people and transitions

• Family-based education strategies and family learning

• Alternative learning settings.

Second, attention is paid to the ways ideas about pupils, students and their families shape the provision and consumption of education. Possible themes include:

• Idealised neo-liberal subject positions and education

• Conceptions of difference, access and inclusion

• Attitudes towards international students in educational settings

• Understanding of child/youth/adulthood in educational provision across diverse global settings.

Debate across this two-fold agenda is intended to forge productive dialogue, and foreground geographies of education which take seriously both the subjectivities of, and ideas about, pupils, students and their families.

Please send abstracts (maximum 200 words) for this theme to Prof. Sarah Holloway (S.L.Holloway@lboro.ac.uk) by 29th February 2012.