Dean's Keynote Series: 21 September 2022. Education through Child and Youth Activism, with Associate Professor Louise Phillips

Associate Professor Louise Phillips, Chair of Initial Teacher Education, Faculty of Education, Southern Cross University

Date and time: Wednesday 21st September, 3:30pm - 5pm

Abstract

Across my career in education, I have been enduringly troubled by how children and youth are positioned as vulnerable, lesser-than and powerless in education systems and broader society. In this keynote, I will share insights from various research projects which have sought to inquire how education could be different for children and youth if their identities as rights holders, citizens, agents and activists were/are upheld. I have looked at pedagogies that teachers can adopt to welcome children and youth to flourish as rights holders, citizens, agents and activists. These have included listening to Aboriginal Elders on pedagogies of love, drawing from ancient pedagogical practices of storytelling and walking, and theories of action (Arendt, 1958/1998), relationality (Barad, 2007; Haraway, 2016; Plumwood, 1994), and literacies (Freebody & Luke, 1993; Pahl & Rowsell, 2020). I wonder what if education embraced activism with children and youth as pivotal learning provocations.

Biography

Associate Professor Louise Phillips is Chair of Initial Teacher Education in the Faculty of Education. She is a professional storyteller and early childhood teacher with more than 30 years of experience working with children across various settings, more recently as a researcher and tertiary educator. She is internationally known for her research and publications on storytelling, children’s rights and citizenship, arts based pedagogies and methodologies, sensation and place.

Video recording of this seminar