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Posthumanism and Education

Posthumanism and Education

The rapidly changing world and new challenges have led many of us to wonder if the current ways of understanding and organizing education are adequate. One emerging perspective in the field of education is posthumanism. Although posthumanism is often considered in a coherent-sounding way in many contexts, it is not a single, unified theory and it has been used in many areas of education. Its multiple voices can be interpreted in many ways – ways that cannot all be introduced in this short text. In general, however, the common goal of the posthuman is to shake dualistic thinking and the dominant position of the humanism. This means that in posthuman thinking humans are not seen as...

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How Design Thinking in Education can Help During COVID-19

How Design Thinking in Education can Help During COVID-19

In April 2020, Dr Fiona Chambers, a Senior Lecturer in PE and Sport Pedagogy at University College Cork in Ireland, drew an idea on the back of an envelope. She envisioned a plan to kickstart sport and physical activity during and beyond the pandemic, using the principle of Design Thinking in Education. This idea has become the first Global Design Challenge for Sport and Physical Activity. Here she tells us the reason behind this challenge and how she went about organising it.

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Intercultural Translation through EERA and ERG

Intercultural Translation through EERA and ERG

María Angélica Mejía Cáceres first heard of EERA and ECER via a post on the web about the summer school: Doctoral Studies in Environmental and Sustainability Education: Contextualizing the Process at the University of Cambridge. It was the first event that María Angélica attended where she needed to speak English all the time so it was a bit of a challenge. María Angélica agreed to write about her experiences, both at the summer school and her further engagement with EERA at the European Conference on Educational Research (ECER) in 2019.

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The Challenges and Opportunities of Physical Education within the Context of Health and Wellbeing

The Challenges and Opportunities of Physical Education within the Context of Health and Wellbeing

During the #ReconnectingEERA online conference, a symposium was held to showcase just some of the excellent Physical Education research that is currently being carried out in Scotland. The symposium was organised in collaboration with SERA and their PE network (ScotPERN) in order to build capacity, share ideas and facilitate conversations. Dr Shirley Gray and Dr Rachel Sandford provide an overview of the online symposium, reflect on the discussion generated and consider implications for future research agendas.

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How Social Capital Affects your Research

How Social Capital Affects your Research

While thinking about research, most researchers focus on the research questions, design, and methodology aspects. However, we may forget about the most important thing about research, as well as our life – the fact that we are human beings. When I was conducting research for my master thesis, this was the part that I had forgotten. There are qualities that we cannot hide, like our colour of skin, our biological gender, and our career (if we are being truthful). And then social capital and being an outsider or insider come into prominence.

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Challenges and Future Directions for Children’s Rights in Education

Challenges and Future Directions for Children’s Rights in Education

The Research on Children’s Rights in Education Network (Network 25) recently held our annual event, as part of the European Educational Research Association (EERA) #ReconnectingECER programme.
This was an exceptional event in several respects. Due to COVID and the cancellation of our annual ‘face to face’ European Conference on Educational Research (ECER), we transformed our EERA Network Development funded project into a virtual open event.

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The Rights of Children in Education

The Rights of Children in Education

Some weeks ago, I was invited to deliver a speech at the ‘Wicked Problems in Children’s Rights in Education’ conference organised by the European Educational Research Association. Whilst preparing my talking points, I was reflecting on the fact that a ‘wicked problem’ is one that is difficult to resolve. There is no simple solution to a wicked problem and it creates tensions, depending on the lens used to analyse the issue. Within this context, I decided to throw some light on one of the more radical rights outlined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC): children and young people’s right to participate and its intersection with the right to education.

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The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Children’s Education

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdowns on Children’s Education

The theme of the ECER 2020 conference was Educational Research: (Re)connecting Communities. This focus was initially prompted by the concerns about the potential effects of Brexit and other fractures in communities in Europe. The conference aimed to interrogate the capacity of educational research to address the complexity of the challenges that are encountered in connecting and reconnecting communities in contemporary Europe. The effects of Covid-19 and the consequent lockdowns that swept across Europe and the world led to further, more extensive, fractures and disconnects across Europe. Schools, universities and workplaces were closed.

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Multi-dimensional professional learning: a leadership perspective

Multi-dimensional professional learning: a leadership perspective

Life and learning rarely go forward in straight lines. The most stimulating and creative experiences often arise from unexpected and unintended interactions. It’s the same with professional learning. We need to master new knowledge and skills, but education is more than knowing and doing. That way lies repetition, comfort learning and stagnation as the future overtakes us. As professionals, we need to question our own contexts; explore and investigate outside our normal routines; look for opportunities to observe and experience different cultures of learning; then re-assess our own practice with fresh eyes.

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Education: An academic discipline or a field?

Education: An academic discipline or a field?

Education research has periodically been sharply criticised for being weak in comparison with research from other disciplines. Some of this criticism has implied, or suggested more directly, that one of the reasons for the perceived weakness in education research is that education is not a ‘proper’ academic discipline when compared to other disciplines.

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