MA in Children, Youth and International Development

This innovative interdisciplinary programme, based at Brunel University, is one of the first worldwide to cater specifically for those working, or interested in working, in the field of children, youth and international development. Taught by highly motivated, internationally recognised, research-active staff, it has been running for five years, and has attracted students from diverse disciplinary and occupational backgrounds and more than 40 different countries.

The course is designed to equip students with the conceptual understanding and breadth of knowledge required to critically evaluate policy and practice in the area of children, youth and international development. It also develops the skills necessary to design and undertake research relating to children, youth and development. Former students have progressed to careers with government, international organisations and NGOs as well as doctoral study.

The full time course requires attendance two days a week across two terms (September to April), followed by 6 months spent researching and writing a dissertation. During term 2, options include a work placement or participation in an academic exchange with the Norwegian Centre for Child Research in Trondheim.

The course commences in late September. We do not operate strict application deadlines, but partial scholarships are available on a competitive basis to international students who apply for the course by 25th May. It is advisable for international applicants to apply by early June in order to secure a UK study visa. Discounts are also available for UK-based applicants with first class degrees and to graduates of Brunel University.

Further details, are available on the Brunel website http://www.brunel.ac.uk/courses/postgraduate/children-youth-international-development-ma. For further information, email nicola.ansell@brunel.ac.uk.

CFP: Researching children’s everyday lives: socio-cultural contexts

5th International Conference
CALL FOR PAPERS

Title: Researching children’s everyday lives: socio-cultural contexts
Dates: Tuesday 1st – Thursday 3rd July 2014
Venue: The Kenwood Hall Hotel, Sheffield, UK
Key Note Speakers:
Professor Pia Christensen, University of Leeds, UK
Dr Tom Cockburn, University of Bradford UK
Professor Margaret Mackey, University of Alberta, Canada

This conference will explore the idea of the ‘everyday’ as a key component of children’s lives, past and present and cross culturally.  To do this means moving away from a ‘problem’ focus on children and childhood by recognising that what counts as the mundane and every day for different children can be radically diverse in different times and places.

Examples of themes to be explored might include:

•      Historical aspects of children’s everyday lives
•      Children’s everyday experiences of living in poverty or experiencing war and conflict
•      Cross-cultural differences in the ‘everyday’
•      Everyday life and children’s agency
•      Theoretical and methodological approaches to understanding everyday life
•      Intergenerational relations in the nature  and flow of children’s everyday life

Those wishing to organise small symposia around a specific theme are also invited to submit a proposal.

Abstracts:
Abstracts of no more than 200 words for papers, posters and symposia should be sent to the conference administrator, Dawn Lesselsd.j.lessels@sheffield.ac.uk, by January 31st 2014.  For full details on submitting abstracts check out our conference page:
http://www.cscy.group.shef.ac.uk/activities/conferences/index.htm

Website:           www.sheffield.ac.uk/cscy <http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/cscy>

Facebook:        www.facebook.com/CSCY.Sheffield<http://www.facebook.com/CSCY.Sheffield>

Twitter:            www.twitter.com/CSCYshefui <http://www.twitter.com/CSCYshefui>                            #cscyconf2014

Children and Social Justice – Seminar Series

Please find details below (and poster attached) of The Centre for Children and Young People’s Participation (www.uclan.ac.uk/cypp) seminar series 2014: Children and Social Justice, part 2.    The seminars start at 4pm and usually finish around 5.30pm.  Following each seminar there is usually an informal network meeting, to which all are invited.  Seminars are free, including refreshments.  To reserve a place please go to the Eventbrite link for that event (reservation will assist us with ordering refreshments and notifying you of late changes).  Regards Lorna

 

5 March, 4-5.30pm, Harrington Building, Room 338

A Story of Failure: The mirroring of social and psychic exclusion among young men in a provincial English inner city

Simon Newitt

(Off the Record, Bristol)

Eventbrite link: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-centre-seminar-story-of-failure-tickets-10331881937

26 March 4-5.30pm, 4-5.30pm, Harrington Building, Room 223

‘We’re tired of talking to you, when will you do something?’

Karen Stuart

(Brathay Trust)

Eventbrite link: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-centre-seminar-were-tired-of-talking-to-you-tickets-10332192867

 

8 May, 4-5.30pm, Brook Building, Room 105

Youth Participation in France: Current initiatives and challenges

Patricia Loncle

(French School of Public Health)

Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-centre-seminar-youth-participation-in-france-tickets-10332481731

 

 

12 May, 4-5.30pm, Harrington Building, Room 337

Embedding children and young people’s participation in health and social care

Louca-Mai Brady (University of the West of England)

Using research led by young people to create change in the NHS

Dan Moxon (People, Dialogue and Change)

Eventbrite link: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-centre-seminar-embedding-cyp-participation-change-in-the-nhs-tickets-10332939099

Seminar: Engaging parents in child protection

Wednesday 19 March
3-4.30pm
Brook building, room 9
School of Social Work, University of Central Lancashire

 

“Engaging parents in child protection”

 

Presented by Brigid Featherstone, Professor of Social Care, Faculty of Health and Social Care: The Open University

 

The seminar is free and refreshments are provided

 

To reserve a place please go to EventBrite at: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/school-seminar-engaging-parents-in-child-protection-tickets-10292008675

Conference on ‘The nature and value of childhood’ May 16-17

Conference: The nature and value of childhood
University of Sheffield

Currently there is widespread philosophical interest in children’s rights, parental rights and duties, and wider issues concerning good parenting and the social organisation of childrearing. Yet, to fully address these topics one needs to assume an answer to the question of ‘What is a child?’ To know who owes what to children in any detail, we need to know what distinguishes childhood from adulthood, and to answer questions about the relative value of childhood and adulthood in the overall life of a human being.
This conference brings together philosophers interested in a cluster of questions that have not been sufficiently discussed so far, but which are starting to draw philosophical attention: What is childhood? Is childhood good intrinsically, or only as preparation for adulthood? If it is intrinsically good, does it have special value – would it be a loss, from the perspective of an entire human life, if one missed out on childhood? Are there any ‘intrinsic goods of childhood’, and what are they? Do we owe children things that are different in nature from the things owed to adults?

Papers:

Monika Betzler (Berne) ‘Good childhood and the good life’

Samantha Brennan (Western Ontario) ‘Trust, time, and play: Three intrinsic goods of childhood’

Matthew Clayton (Warwick) ‘Dignity as an ideal for children’

Jurgen De Wispelaere (McGill) ‘Political rights for Rugrats: Children in the democratic state’

Timothy Fowler (Bristol) ‘Variety is the spice of life?: On the possible significance of their being intrinsic goods of childhood’

Colin Macleod (Victoria) ‘Just schools and good fun: Non-preparatory dimensions of educational justice’

Serena Olsaretti (ICREA/Pompeu Fabra) ‘Egoism, altruism and the special duties of parents’

Lindsey Porter (Lancaster) ‘Paternalism: why is it bad to be treated like a child?’

Norvin Richards (Alabama) ‘The intrinsic goods of childhood’

Judith Suissa (London) ‘Narrativity, childhood and parenting’

Patrick Tomlin (Reading) ‘Saplings or caterpillars?: Trying to understand children”

Daniel Weinstock (McGill) ‘On the complementarity of the ages of life: Why we wouldn’t want adulthood without childhood, or childhood without adulthood’

The conference will take place on the 16th and 17th of May 2014 at the University of Sheffield, Jessops West Exhibition Space.

Registration fees: 10 GBP for one day or 20 GBP for both days cover coffee and lunch. Registration and full program will be available soon. For more details get in touch with the organisers: Anca Gheaus (a.gheaus@sheffield.ac.uk) or Lindsey Porter (l.porter@lancaster.ac.uk)

The conference is sponsored by the Society for Applied Philosophy, The Mind Association and The Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain.

CFP – Theorising Childhood: Citizenship, Rights, Participation

ESA Research Network 4. Sociology of Children and Childhood
Mid-term Symposium
May 21-23, 2014
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy

Sociology of Childhood – Theorising Childhood: Citizenship, Rights, Participation


The Research Network, Sociology of Children and Childhood hereby announces the mid-term symposium which will take place in Modena (Italy) from 21st to 23rd May, 2014. The organisation of the symposium will be undertaken at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia.

The focus of the symposium will be on theorising childhood, in particular the areas of citizenship, rights and participation, exploring the different and various perspectives that can include these topics in the broader field of childhood studies and Sociology.
This symposium follows, continues and articulates the ideas developed during the symposium in Jyväskylä (Finland) in 2012. The objective of this symposium is to invite theorising in the wide variety of contexts of citizenship, rights and participation, approaching the social studies of childhood in terms of children’s actions, children’s competences and children’s viewpoints and perspectives.

The first day of the symposium (21st of May) will be dedicated to a public conference, with the participation of the following keynote speakers:

Hanne Warming (University of Roskilde, Denmark), on children’s global citizenship
Karl Hanson (Kurt Bösch Institute, Sion), on children’s rights
Michal Wyness (University of Warwick) on children’s participation
Maria Herczog (chair at Family, Child and Youth, Reader at Eszterházy Károly College, member of the UN CRC Committee) on promotion of children’s rights and participation

The second and third days of the symposium will be dedicated to paper sessions. Although the focus of the first day of the symposium is around theorising childhood citizenship, rights and participation, the call general Call for Papers is open to core theoretical areas of the sociology of childhood.
We therefore invite experienced and young researchers from various disciplines sensitive to the sociology of childhood to participate. Although presentations and discussions will mainly revolve around theorising, participants are welcome to discuss theoretical implications for interdisciplinary work on childhood. Presentations can be related to the following areas:

  1. Classical sociological theories and new directions in sociological theories of childhood
  2. The concepts of temporality and spatiality in theorising childhood
  3. Theorisations of cultural identity and (global) citizenship applied to children
  4. Theories of rights, inequalities and injustices in childhood
  5. Theories of children’s participation in institutional and informal contexts
  6. Theorisations around gender and ethnicity applied to children
  7. The role of theory in interdisciplinary work on childhood


There will be no conference fees. The number of delegates will be restricted to 30 to enable discussion. The papers will be selected according to relevance to the areas of the symposium.

Instructions

The abstracts must be written in English in no more than 400 words, and include 3-5 keywords. Please submit your abstract and full contact details as electronic files no later than the 15th February 2014Send the abstract to Tom Cockburn (t.d.cockburn@bradford.ac.uk).
The deadline for notification for abstracts is 15st March 2014.

For further details on the symposium please contact Tom Cockburn (t.d.cockburn@bradford.ac.uk)

CFP – “Child migrants or ‘third culture kids’? Approaches to children and privileged mobility”

I would like to invite you to propose papers to the panel
“Child migrants or ‘third culture kids’? Approaches to children and privileged mobility”
in the EASA conference in Tallinn, Estonia, on 31st July – 3rd August, 2014.
Best regards, Mari Korpela

Child migrants or ‘third culture kids’? Approaches to children and privileged mobility
Convenors: Mari Korpela (University of Tampere) and Anne-Meike Fechter (University of Sussex)

Short Abstract
This panel broadens the analytical framework of ‘child migration’ to include those economically and socially privileged and critically considers the theoretical framework of ‘third culture kids’. The papers present ethnographic studies and theoretical reflections on privileged child migrants.

Long Abstract
The relationship between children and transnational mobility is often conceptualised in two rather disparate frameworks. The first focuses on comparatively disenfranchised or disadvantaged children -independent child migrants, those who move with their migrant families or children ‘left behind’- and debates tend to focus on how their welfare, education or livelihoods are affected by mobility. At the same time, a rather different paradigm is invoked in relation to comparatively affluent and privileged children: the notion of ‘third culture kids’ (Pollock and van Reken 2001) is perhaps the most influential one in this respect. For anthropologists, however, this is a problematic term as it seems to assume static cultures. Moreover, despite a wealth of educational literature on this topic, studies are rarely underpinned by in-depth ethnographic research that extends beyond international schools to include family, peers, or host societies. The aim of this panel is to broaden the analytical framework of ‘child migration’ to include those economically and socially privileged and to critically consider the theoretical framework of ‘third culture kids’ and its applications. We also want to address, both analytically and empirically, the presumed privilege of expatriate children. We welcome ethnographic studies of privileged child migrants leading to theoretical reflections on these issues.

Discussant: Vered Amit

To read more about the conference theme, go here: http://www.easaonline.org/conferences/easa2014/theme.shtml.

Paper proposals must be made to specific panels via the ‘Propose a paper’ link found beneath the panel abstract on that panel’s webpage.
http://www.nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2014/panels.php5?PanelID=3049

Proposals should consist of:
a paper title
authors/co-authors
a short abstract of fewer than 300 characters
a long abstract of fewer than 250 words.

The CFP is open until February 27th.