The WCCES 14th World Congress will be held at Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey from 14-19 June 2010.
The theme is "Bordering, Re-Bordering and New Possibilities for Change in Education and Society".
CALL FOR PAPERS
XIV WORLD CONGRESS
WORLD COUNCIL OF COMPARATIVE EDUCATION SOCIETIES (WCCES)
‘Border’ is a key concept for analyzing the relationship between education and society at all levels. Borders can be national, regional, social or psychic; they can be fixed or shifting. Borders and ‘lines’ can be material (walls), psychological (in peoples’ minds) or metaphorical (the ‘glass ceiling’ for women’s careers). Discussions of borders are part of discussions of space, and of space-time.
‘Space’ can be absolute/concrete/fixed/measurable (rooms, properties, cities, territories) but also relative (flows and exchanges of energy, peoples, money and information in space and time); and relational (linked to how people operate together in or across these spaces). Space is something produced by human activity and in turn conditions it.
Educational space is where ‘difference’ is conceived, reproduced or contested. Our interests would be the linkages between material space (institutional buildings, camps), representations of space (maps and organizational charts as well as metaphors) and spaces of representation, (the lived or experienced space, our feelings and emotions, our senses of security or insecurity). Spaces are made in the living of our lives, and since they are always being made, the possibility remains for them to be made differently. ‘Border-crossers’, physically and psychologically, can defy or challenge structures, and can reclaim power or identity.
The production and control of space and borders is always tied up with questions of power and politics; and also with the production of inequality. Spaces and their uses can be classed, gendered, racialised, and sexualized. The production of space is also therefore linked to the production of identities, to spaces for assembly, or to keeping ‘others’ in their place, materially or symbolically – whether ‘members of the nation-state’, ‘believers’ or ‘the disabled’. Our educational concerns therefore link to inclusion and exclusion.
Rebordering is an aspect of globalization, and it is thought that all themes would have globalization as a backdrop if not a direct concern, and as an opportunity as well as a threat. There would be concerns about responsibility across and within borders (for climate change, arms trade, movements of peoples). But also the concerns are about borders in terms of social divisions, the invisible and visible lines between groups, and how education can challenge those borders which deny freedoms, rights and capabilities. Then, what are the educational spaces for contestation of inequality, for interruption?
THEMATIC GROUPS
The conference includes the following 14 groups which will address the issues of bordering in an international perspective from their specific thematic vantage point.
The Thematic Groups of the Conference are:
1.Educational Governance, Policy Within and Across Borders
2.Comparative Education: Rethinking Theory and Method
3.Education, Conflict and Transitions Within and Between Societies
4.Demystifying Quality in Education
5.Re-imagining Curriculum
6.Critical Perspectives in Teacher Education and Development
7.Identity, Space and Diversity in Education
8.Education, Human and Social Development, and Capabilities
9.New Technologies and Accessibility to Learning
10.Education and Children's Rights in a "Globalized" World
11.Education, Politics of Dominance, the Suppressed and Disappearing Languages
12.Privatization and Marketization in Education
13.Education, Migration, Citizenship and the State
14.Cross-Thematic Groups (Special Interest Groups / Special Workshops / Symposia / Round table)
We welcome theoretical and/or empirical papers that address the issues from different thematic group perspectives. We encourage papers based on national and/or comparative research and which draw on a range of viewpoints. In particular we look forward to papers from different groups and individuals, NGOs, regional or national institutions, bilateral or multilateral organizations, and financing agencies.
ORGANIZERS
Turkish Comparative Education Society - TUKED
World Council of Comparative Education Societies - WCCES
Boğaziçi University, Department of Educational Sciences - B.U.
Contact Information
Email:
Homepage: http://www.wcces2010.org
