The venue for this event has been updated. We will now hold this event in One A the Square, in the Main Building. This can be accessed through the door to the Gilchrist Postgraduate Club. You can find information on getting to the venue here: https://www.accessable.co.uk/university-of-glasgow/access-guides/one-a-the-square#4b10ab92-e3a6-334e-a2e1-8a042b581721

Join us for an event marking the contributions to research made by Emeritus Prof Mike Osborne through his leadership and support for the Centre for Research and Development in Adult and Lifelong Learning.

Agenda:

12.30-12:45 Registration

12:45-13:30 Lunch

13:30-16:00 Presentations

• Welcome – Anna Wilson
• Academic Freedom: Pressures Within and Outwith the Academy – Prof Maria Slowey
• Place and Education: Reconciling the Two Traditions? – Prof Keith Kintrea
• Gendered Journeys: Development of a Global Toolkit for Intersectional Inequalities in STEM – Prof Catherine Lido
• Widening Higher Education Participation as a Matter of Social Justice – Dr Patience Nyamunda
• Collaborative Projects in Gaza: LINEs for Palestine and Education in Conflict – Dr Maria Grazia Imperiale and Dr Giovanna Fassetta

16:00-17:00 Closing and drinks

This event is free to attend for all but we ask you to register for catering purposes.

Abstracts and speaker bios:

Academic Freedom: Pressures Within and Outwith the Academy

Individual academics- and universities- in many parts of the world face multiple challenges. The most egregious of these are well documented by bodies such as Scholars at Risk, reports in World University News and material gathered for the Academic Freedom Index. However, even in liberal democracies there are signs that the exercise of academic freedom is under increasing strain. The pressures may be more subtle but, nonetheless, cumulatively can have a significant impact on academic freedom. Classically, academic freedom is interpreted as the right to pursue teaching and research as ‘communities of scholars’ see fit. This presentation explores a number of contemporary developments in higher education which, in different ways, pose threats to this ideal. The case is made that academic freedom cannot be taken for granted: its defence requires constant vigilance.

Maria Slowey is Emeritus Professor, Dublin City University, where she was Director of the Higher Education Research Centre (HERC), and Vice President Learning Innovation. From 1992-2004 she was Professor and Director of Adult and Continuing Education, Glasgow University, where she was Founding Director of the Centre for Research and Development in Adult and Lifelong Learning (CRADALL) and served a period as Vice-Dean Research. She is Senior Editor, Studies in Higher Education and a Visiting Professor in the School of Education, Glasgow University, and the Department of Education and Psychology, University of Florence.

Place and Education: Reconciling the Two Traditions?

The sizable research effort that links place to education has two main strands. The first focusses on Learning Cities, a concept that promotes learning variously as a source of individual self-realisation, social inclusion and often, ultimately, urban economic competitiveness. This strand is mainly the work of educationists and the premise is that lifelong learning can make a city a better place. The second strand is part of the ongoing debate about urban inequalities and neighbourhood effects. It typically focuses on the stark contrasts in attainment that persist between young people who live in different parts of the same city. This kind of research is mainly the preserve of geographers and other exponents of urban studies. The premise is that knowing more about the effects of place can help challenge disadvantage and make for better education. While both of these traditions are concerned with the practice of education in defined places, they rarely intersect. The presentation will explore why that might be so and if there would be benefits to reconciling them.

Keith Kintrea is Emeritus Professor at the University of Glasgow, where he was Head of Urban Studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences.

Gendered Journeys: Development of a Global Toolkit for Intersectional Inequalities in STEM

Despite progress in some domains (e.g. biomedical sciences), women remain persistently underrepresented in many STEM fields. The Gendered Journeys project explored and addressed this gap in India, Rwanda and the UK. This talk will focus on our development of an interactive Gendered Journeys toolkit for facilitating dialogue with students, teachers, schools, higher level Gender-STEM NGO decision-makers and policymakers, highlighting the critical role that gender diversity plays in scientific and technological innovation.

Catherine Lido is Professor of Psychology and Adult Learning in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow. She is co-I on the Gendered Journeys project and leads the Glasgow hub of the PASCAL Observatory for Europe.

Widening Higher Education Participation as a Matter of Social Justice

The widening of higher education participation to groups that have been disadvantaged by their personal and situational characteristics is recognised by governments and universities globally as vital both to enhance social equity and economic development. Given that the average earnings for young adults (25- 34 years) with a university degree are 38% more than those with secondary education (OECD, 2021), those from non-traditional groups would benefit the most from going to university. Despite a general increase in participation rates, non-traditional students are disproportionately represented in teaching-intensive rather than research-intensive universities and are also less represented in specific programmes such as medicine and law. While getting into teaching-intensive universities enables HE access, it also perpetuates the privilege of those who attend more elite institutions. Therefore, accessing higher education, particularly research-intensive universities becomes a matter of social justice.

Patience Nyamunda has worked in Zimbabwe and South Africa as well as the University of Glasgow, where she is currently Lecturer in Education.

Collaborative Projects in Gaza: LINEs for Palestine and Education in Conflict

In this session, we will present two recent projects we have been working on over the last 10 months with colleagues in the Gaza Strip. The first project, LINEs4Palestine (funded by the British Council), aimed to provide academic support to English and Education graduates and English language teachers through a series of online workshops and one-on-one mentoring. The second project, Education in Conflict (funded internally by the University of Glasgow), is a collaborative research initiative that explores how Palestinian higher education institutions are resuming educational activities and operating in emergency situations. This project also aims to support our Palestinian colleagues through shared dissertation supervision and the training of master's students.

The session aims to demonstrate that, although extremely challenging, collaborations for education in Palestine are both urgent and valuable/impactful.

Maria Grazia Imperiale coordinated the Culture for Sustainable and Inclusive Peace Network+, researching conflict transformation through arts-based methods in Palestine, Mexico, Morocco, Zimbabwe, and Ghana. She is currently Lecturer in Adult Education at the University of Glasgow.

Giovanna Fassetta co-convenes the Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet). She is Senior Lecturer in Social Inclusion in the School of Education at the University of Glasgow.