EERA’s unique buzz – and the lessons I’ve learned

EERA’s unique buzz – and the lessons I’ve learned

EERA is celebrating 30 years in 2024, and as part of our anniversary celebrations, we have invited people who have been at the heart of the association to share their memories and reflections. In a series of blog posts, which will run throughout 2024, we will share those precious memories, from the people who helped foster the global EERA community.

In this blog post, Terri Seddon, Professor Emeritus of La Trobe University explains why the European Conference on Educational Research became her ‘first-choice’ academic conference, and worth the long-haul flights from her home in Melbourne. 

The 1994 conference was unlike anything I’d experienced. I’d attended BERA but this joint conference with the newly formed European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) was quite different. The structure and sessions were standard, but the discussion, give and take, and energy distinguished this event.

That buzz drew me back to ECER year after year. I attended Frankfurt and Lahti, missed Seville and Ljubljana, then settled into ECER on a yearly basis. Between Edinburgh (2000) and Hamburg (2019), I only missed Lille and Copenhagen, despite twenty-hour long-haul flights from Melbourne. ECER became my first-choice academic conference. What was calling me?

The buzz became clearer at a small 2002 conference on globalisation and Europeanisation of education organised by Jenny Ozga at Keele University. She asked if I’d do the plenary. I agreed.

At dinner, the night before the conference, Jenny asked if I was ready to present.

‘But aren’t I at the end?’ I spluttered, voice squeaking with anxiety. Plenaries are concluding events in Australia: usually some wrap-up comments, sometimes provocative insights.

‘No, you’re first up tomorrow.’

After a long night, I presented that plenary, what I called an opening lecture. I have no memory of the content, but there was good discussion exploring our different views, with careful attention to language, meanings and how words were used.

Later that evening, chatting about the plenary, Edwin Keiner said, somewhat cryptically, ‘In Europe, we “offer”ideas’.

The anxious Australian learned many lessons from that plenary. I learned that words have geographies, meanings differ from place to place. I learned that anxiety affects presentation style, as do linguistic conventions, cultural habits and national histories. I learned that careful listening reveals speaker’s place-based cosmologies that contextualise what they say and how they build knowledge.

ECER offered theatre where I could watch Eurozone and Anglophone worlds in action. Aligned with ECER’s spirit of dialogue, I saw Anglophone researchers called out for speaking too fast in English. I noticed disrespectful listeners, not recognising a presenter’s halting English as their second, third or fourth language. Listening to words and silences, I grasped participant’s premises and forms of reasoning.

ECER’s theatrics showed words, stories and styles framed by place-based cosmologies. Mixed-nationality panels surfaced histories through boundaries and blind spots. Participant’s memories made relationships, systems and structures more understandable. Some ways of using words communicated and created hierarchies. Others offered a hospitality of voice that recognised what it meant to live, cheek-by-jowl, within and across sensitive borderlines.

ECER’s buzz drew me into a voyage of discovery and ECER’s offers shaped my reading of cultures and cosmologies. Conferences revealed shared cosmologies through resonances between people’s theories and biographies, and as spaces of story framed by faiths, fairies and fears. These communicative spaces recognised worlds beyond the material spaces of governing and experience, where powerful narratives play through people’s space of imagination.

Bringing these ECER insights back to Australia was hard because pragmatic, performative, can-do cultures treat the Machine as cosmology. In politics and everyday life there was wariness about things beyond the tangible, business-as-usual world. Secularism is significant. Awkward silences around First Nation’s celebration of Country disregard the cosmologies of continuous cultures over 60,000 years, cannot erode the sovereignty of mind that sustains Indigenous identities and cultures.

 

Looking back, I’m grateful for ECER’s buzz and its offers. They helped me question established stories, universalised knowledge, claims, and narratives that claimed to trump all others. Reconceiving contextualisation, I examined communicative spaces to identify probable and preferred practices of governing education and societies.

In 1994, ECER conversations offered the idea of an emerging ‘European educational space’ and documented practices of governing that changed education and societies. In 2024, climate change, toxic chemicals, and overpopulation challenge national governments and global governance, but people schooled into Machine mindsets are slow to respond to these legacies of colonial capitalism, despite threats of extinction.

So, I offer ECER a question: Can practices of governing that now steer the ‘European educational space’ be re-designed to re-shape the conscience of nations and their peoples through the emerging ‘Anthropocene educational space’?

The EERA Office – The view from within the spaceship

Angelika Wegscheider explains what it is like to steer the ‘spaceship’ of the EERA office, the changes she has seen over the years, and the lessons she’s learned from her time with the organisation.

A European Space for Educational Research and Dialogue

Past Secretary General of EERA, Professor Lisbeth Lundahl on the importance of EERA as an open and welcoming space for educational research and discourse.

20 Years a-going – Reflecting on two decades with EERA

Past President, Professor Joe O’Hara takes a walk down memory lane to celebrate EERA’s 30th anniversary, and reflects on the developments and achievements of the organisation.

Twenty years of participating in EERA’s 30 years

In this blog post, Professor Emeritus of Educational Sciences at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, and previous EERA president, Dr Theo Wubbels reflects on his involvement in EERA over the years, and where the organisation’s future lies.

My EERA story – from novice doctoral researcher to ERG Link Convenor

ERG Link Convenor Dr Saneeya Qureshi looks back on her journey, from her first conference, to her professional and personal growth with EERA, and the friendships made along the way.

Establishing Network 27 – and trends in didactics of learning and teaching over the past decades

Professor Emeritus Brian Hudson on the establishment and development of Network 27, and the associated trends in didactics of learning and teaching over the past few decades.

EERA’s unique buzz – and the lessons I’ve learned

Professor Emeritus Terri Seddon explains why the European Conference on Educational Research became her ‘first-choice’ academic conference, and worth the long-haul flights from her home in Melbourne. 

Experiences and benefits from collaborating in the international ethnography network

Four long-term Network 19 members, currently serving as network convenors, share their stories and insights into what the network means to them.

Developing an EERA Network Identity – NW 20 through the years

As part of our 30th anniversary celebration, Professor Raimonda Brunevičiūtė reflects on her EERA journey, and the development of Network 20, Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environment.

Growing (with) EERA Network 14

As part of our 30 years of EERA celebrations, Dr Joana Lúcio reflects on her time as Link Convenor of Network 14, and her professional and personal growth.

Pleasure, confusion, and friendship – 30 years of EERA

EERA’s first Secretary General and founding editor of the EERJ, Professor Martin Lawn, looks back at the sometimes rocky road of EERA, the developments into the organisation it is today, and considers where the journey should go next.

Improving the quality of education – EERA Network 11 through the years

To celebrate EERA’s 30th anniversary, Dr Gento takes a look at the activities of Network 11 to improve the quality of education, within EERA and in the wider educational research community.

Serendipity in Action: Being a link convenor for the ERG was a vibrant thread in the vast tapestry of my academic life

For the 30th anniversary celebrations of EERA, Dr Patricia Fidalgo reflects on her time as Link Convenor of the Emerging Researchers’ Group, and the joy this fulfilling role brought her.

A Transformative Journey: Nurturing Emerging Researchers at the European Conference for Educational Research.

In our blog series celebrating 30 years of EERA, Professor Fiona Hallett reflects on the sense of belonging within a supportive community of scholars.

Terri Seddon

Terri Seddon

Professor Emeritus, La Trobe University, Melbourne

Dr Terri Seddon is Professor Emeritus at La Trobe University and Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences. She uses historical sociologies of education to understand continuity and change in governing, policy and professional knowledge building. A series editor of the World Yearbook of Education (2006-2021), Terri interrogated globalising education policies, complexities of powerlessness and the transforming effects of transnational knowledge building.