Preparations are well underway for the HASSE Research Futures Symposium on Monday 14-Tuesday 15 October 2024.

I’m delighted to announce that our two internationally renowned guest speakers – Professor Deborah Youdell (Macquarie) and Emeritus Professor Jane Kenway (Monash) – will be joining us to present a keynote on each day of the symposium. Their respective expertise as sociologists of education speaks to the relevance of interdisciplinarity and social justice concerns beyond the contexts of schools and classrooms, contributing nuanced ways of understanding the implications of policy, power and everyday normative practices for subjectivities, social relations, and societies more broadly. We’re looking forward to welcoming them to UNE, and to learning from their experience and expertise.

14 Oct – Deborah Youdell (Macquarie University)

Deborah Youdell is Professor and Dean of School in the Macquarie School of Education. A distinguished Sociologist of Education with a strong commitment to addressing social inequality through education, Deborah’s rich academic background includes working at Macquarie University in the early 2000s followed by roles at University of Cambridge, UCL Institute of Education and University of Birmingham. With a focus on understanding the intricate connections between social, economic and biological factors that shape learning inequities, Deborah has collaborated across disciplines, including biochemistry and neuroscience. Her research aims to bridge the gap between theoretical insights and practical policy solutions, and holds the promise of transforming education and related services by informing evidence-based practices and decision-making.

15 Oct – Emeritus Professor Jane Kenway (Monash University)

Jane Kenway is Emeritus Professor, Monash University and Professorial Fellow, Melbourne University. She is also an Elected Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia. Previously she was a Professorial Fellow with the Australian Research Council and a Professor of global education and policy studies at Monash University. Her research expertise is in the sociology of education with a particular focus on power, politics and social inequality. She has a long-standing interest in school and university policies including public/ private school funding debates in Australia and the UK. Her recent publications mainly focus on elite private schools around the world. She is currently completing a book called Entitlement: How Rich Youth Get What They Want. Her newest research is concerned with universities and the politics of support for Palestine.

This year’s HASSE Research Futures Symposium is organized around a series of round-table sessions led by research groups and networks in the faculty, with external guest speakers to act as discussants for each roundtable session. The following research groups and networks have been awarded funding to support bringing external discussants to Armidale, with a view to fostering scholarly dialogue with peers from other universities and working toward future collaborations. The following round-table sessions are planned:

UNE Asia Pacific Network (APN)

Session Title: Revisiting Decolonisation in the Asia-Pacific from an Australian Perspective: Processes and Problematisation

Discussant: Professor Vera Mackie, University of Wollongong

 

Interculturality and Education Strategic Research Group

Session Title: Accessibility, participation and agency in supporting marginalised communities and groups in regional Australia

Discussant: Professor Meredith Marra, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

 

University Cultural and Creative Arts Network (UCCAN)

Session Title: Linking the future to the past: historical representations in the creative arts and GLAM sector

Discussant: Dr Chris Muller, Macquarie University

 

Southern Communities Research Network

Session Title: Decolonising, Interdisciplinarity and Critical Language Studies

Discussant: Associate Professor Kathomi Gatwiri, Southern Cross University

 

UNE Literary Worlds Research Group 

Session Title: Networks, Interdisciplinarity and Literary Communities

Discussant: Associate Professor Alistair Rolls, University of Newcastle

 

UNEXIX Nineteenth-Century Network

Session Title: One Foot in the Nineteenth-Century

Discussant: Associate Professor Anna Jackson, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand

 

UNE Teach for the Future

Session Title: Teach for the Future: Maximising teacher professional pathways in the New South Wales

Discussant: Cynthia Wearne, Leader for Teacher Education Partnerships, NSW Department of Education

 

The Research Futures Symposium schedule and program is in final stages of preparation, and will be circulated together with details for attendance in person at Oorala or online via Zoom. We’re looking forward to sharing HASSE research in this exciting event, and thanks to those who are contributing their time, knowledge and talents to its success!