Event at Leeds Beckett to explore poverty and education

The seminar, part of the British Educational Research Association’s (BERA) commission on poverty and policy advocacy series, will take place at Leeds Beckett’s Headingley Campus on Thursday 21 January and is free to attend.

Academics from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales and Australia will offer their perspectives on the political contexts and policy landscapes in which schools are increasingly picking up the burden of poverty.  The speakers will explore partnerships, professional knowledge work and governance as well as sharing a set of critical thinking tools.  The event will close with a panel that will respond to the day’s proceedings with specific attention to questions about what constitutes good schools policy and practice to support teachers’ work with students who experience poverty and cumulative multiple deprivation.

Lori Beckett, Professor of Teacher Education at Leeds Beckett and one of the organisers of the event, explained: “There is a need to recognise that within the current climate of economic austerity, policy responses to poverty and schooling are differently configured in England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There is also a need to understand how this influences the experiences of ‘poor’ students and teachers, and to identify possibilities for entering into professional and public debates about school policy and education more broadly. 

“This seminar at Leeds Beckett provides a space for academics, teachers and policy makers to engage in knowledge building about poverty and cumulative multiple deprivations as these find expression in education and schooling.”

The key aims of the seminar series are to challenge dominant conceptions of poverty; raise awareness of the complexity of the relationship between poverty and education; illuminate the resources within ‘poor’ communities; recognise excluded and silenced voices; gain a better understanding of the different education systems and policy-making agendas across the UK and set the strategic direction and aspirations of BERA in this area by providing guidelines on how it should engage with other learned societies, research councils, governments and education communities. 

The British Educational Research Association (BERA) is a member-led charity that exists to encourage educational research and its application for the improvement of practice and public benefit. The Research Commission is supported by BERA as part of a series of Commissions that are exploring how educational research can respond to the challenges and opportunities raised by the changing nature of education across the United Kingdom.

For more information about the event visit https://www.bera.ac.uk/event/poverty-education-in-four-jurisdictions-and-internationally  

For more information about the Commission visit https://www.bera.ac.uk/project/bera-research-commissions