ESRI to present two prestigious BERA Keynote Symposia

ESRI members have been selected to present two out of the six Keynote Symposia featured at this year’s British Educational Research Association Conference. Keynote symposia are won in open competition, and represent research judged to be of particularly high quality and significance.

The Return of the Thing: Feminism and the Material in Educational Research. Convened by Helen Colley, ESRI, MMU.

Guess Who’s Coming to Bera? Has Critical Race Theory Arrived in UK Education Research? Convened by Lorna Roberts, ESRI, MMU.

ESRI members are also leading a further 8 symposia. Many of our sessions involve leading researchers from other countries including Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Sweden and the US. ESRI people are also presenting individual papers on a wide range of topics. Our students are presenting in both the student and the main conferences.
Further details of MMU’s contributions to BERA Conference follow below.

BERA Conference will be held at the Institute of Education, University of London, 5th – 8th September. Conference website: http://www.beraconference.co.uk/

MMU at BERA Conference 2007

Keynote Symposium: The Return of the Thing: Feminism and the Material in Educational Research.
Convener and Chair: Helen Colley, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Christina Hughes, University of Warwick
Presentations:
A material view of time in feminist perspectives on lifecourse transitions (Helen Colley, MMU)
The ghost in the machine: the material and the archive (Alison Jones, University of Auckland, New Zealand; Kuni Jenkins, Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi, New Zealand)
A deconstructive re-turn to the embodiedness of research (Hillevi Lenz-Taguchi, Institute of Education, Stockholm, Sweden)
Between two debts: child and (inter)national development (Erica Burman, MMU)

Keynote Symposium: Guess Who’s Coming to Bera? Has Critical Race Theory Arrived in UK Education Research?
Convener and Chair: Lorna Roberts, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Gill Crozier, University of Sunderland
Presentations:
Explaining away an absence of white race talk (Lisa Mazzei, MMU)
‘To White people I have to prove that I am as British as they are. I feel that I have to make an effort’. Contesting notions of ‘Britishness’ and ‘social cohesion’ (Lorna Roberts, MMU; Sara Pakarian, MMU)
‘This week we’ll be doing race’: students teachers conceptualising race as a ‘central’ practice (Paul Warmington, University of Birmingham)

Symposium: Working the Limits of Voice in Qualitative Research
Convener and Chair: Lisa Mazzei, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Pat Thomson, University of Nottingham
Presentations:
Broken voices (Maggie MacLure, MMU)
The limit of voice (Lisa Mazzei, MMU)
Reading the silences: ex-pupil voices and exclusion from school (Jo Frankham, University of Manchester)
Racing post structuralism: tracing theoretical privilege and post structural responsibility in educational research (Wanda Pillow, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign

Symposium: Inscribing the Personal and Political in Action Research
Chair and Discussant: Bridget Somekh, ESRI, MMU
Presentations:
Action Research for/as/or mindful of social justice (Morwenna Griffiths, Nottingham Trent University)
The Teachers’ Covenant: reframing our notions of ethics in educational action research (Mary Brydon-Miller, University of Cincinnati)
Educational poetics: A political humanist form of action research (Andrew Gitlin, University of Georgia)
Political theory and working with teachers for Champaign Social Justice Schooling (Susan Noffke, University of Illinois; Marie Brennan, University of South Australia)
Creating a new experience of teaching: teacher education within a context of social reconstruction (Maureen Robinson, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, South Africa)

Symposium: ICT, Pedagogical Innovations and Teachers’ Learning
Chair: Nancy Law, University of Hong Kong
Co-convenor: Bridget Somekh
Discussant: Margaret Cox, King’s College, London
Presentations:
Multimedia cases in teacher education: a design research approach (Ellen van den Berg, Peter Blijleven, University of Twente, Netherlands
Teacher knowledge and teacher learning for pedagogical innovation with ICT (Nancy Law, University of Hong Kong)
Researching the process of pedagogic change with ICT (Bridget Somekh, MMU)

Symposium: Ethics and Ethical Procedures in Educational and Social Research: What is Necessary? What is Desirable?
Convener and Chair: Harry Torrance, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Pat Mahony, Roehampton University
Presentations:
Ethical procedures as ‘risk management’: the antithesis of ethical behaviour? (Harry Torrance, MMU)
Research ethics, academic virtue and the practice of higher education (David Bridges, University of East Anglia)
Research with vulnerable people: towards more democratic procedures (Christine O’Hanlon, University of East Anglia)
Ethical procedures and the utility and validity of data (Kathleen Lane, University of East Anglia)

Symposium: Developing Effective Pedagogy in Science for Trainee Teachers
Convener and Chair: Dave Heywood, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Anna Traianou (Goldsmiths, University of London)
Presentations:
Encouraging science discourse in the early years: a re-evaluation of questioning strategies (Diane Harris, MMU)
Problematising science subject matter knowledge as a legitimate enterprise in primary teacher education (Dave Heywood, MMU)
Student teachers’ development of subject pedagogy in science (Joan Parker, MMU)
A case study of student teachers’ development of scientific understanding of features of the sun’s path (Mark Rowlands, MMU)

Symposium: Exploring Realistic Mathematics Education in English secondary Schools
Convener and Chair: Una Hanley, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Tansy Hardy, Sheffield Hallam University
Presentations:
The ESRC researcher’s account (Una Hanley, MMU)
Innovators’ account (Una Hanley, MMU, Frank Eade, MMU, Fiona Cockerham, Queen Elizabeth High School, Manchester)
Classroom teacher’s account (F. Cockerham, Queen Elizabeth High School)

Symposium: Interactive Whiteboards: Issues Relating to Professional Development and Pedagogical Change (Part I)
Convener and Chair: Cathy Lewin, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Peter Twining, Open University
Presentations:
IWB skills and IWB pedagogy: you can’t have one without the other. So what does this mean for CPD? (Maureen Haldane, MMU)
Primary teachers’ understanding of the interactive whiteboard as a tool for children’s collaborative learning and knowledge-building (Paul Warwick, Ruth Kershner, University of Cambridge)
The impact of formal and informal professional development opportunities in the evaluation of the University Primary Schools Whiteboard Expansion Project (Cathy Lewin, MMU)

Symposium: Interactive Whiteboards: Issues Relating to Professional Development and Pedagogical Change (Part II)
Convener and Chair: Cathy Lewin, ESRI, MMU
Discussant: Peter Twining, Open University
Presentations:
Developing multimedia tools to stimulate thinking about teaching with interactive whiteboards (Sara Hennessy, Rosemary Deaney, University of Cambridge)
Effective teacher professional development to stimulate quality teaching with ICT: a case study of one school and interactive whiteboards (Anthony Jones, John Vincent, University of Melbourne, Australia)

Individual papers and contributions to symposia

Crossing the boundaries: exploring the impact of current healthcare changes on mature entrants to the University physiotherapy profession (Daphne Dawson, MMU. Student Conference presentation)

Natural disruption of learning with ICT using a Client Centred Approach (Jonathan Moss, MMU. Student Conference presentation)

A critical evaluation of the implementation processes of ‘Positive Futures’ and their effects on the participation of individual young people in this programme (Sarah Preston, MMU. Student Conference presentation)

Developing research questions in a shifting practical and methodological landscape (Pete Phethean, MMU. Student Conference presentation)

A systematic review of the research evidence on the induction of newly qualified teachers (Jamie Arrowsmith, Caroline Davies, Michael Totterdell, MMU)

Sincerity and cynicism in reflective practice: a psychoanalytic perspective (Tony Brown, MMU)

The invention of teachers: how beginning professionals learn (Ian Stronach, Brian Corbin, MMU)

Becoming a ‘problem’: how children acquire a bad reputation in the earliest years at school (Rachel Holmes, Liz Jones, Maggie MacLure, Christina Macrae, MMU)

Dance in mainstream English schools: issues of gender and sexuality (John Cummings, MMU)

Trajectories or lines of flight. Developing a way of seeing teachers and change (Una Hanley, MMU)

Moving towards the professionalisation of sports coaching: some vignettes of experience (Bill Taylor, Dean Garratt, MMU)

Using ICT to support teacher reflection (Tony Shallcross, John Robinson, MMU)

Higher Futures 4 U: An innovative widening participation scheme (Jamie Arrowsmith,MMU)

Resistance to ‘truth’ in citizenship education: a critical race approach (Charlotte Chadderton, MMU)

Children’s developing understanding about the role of punctuation in written language (Nigel Hall, Sue Sing, MMU)

Getting methods into perspective (Christina Macrae, MMU)

Symposium ‘Seeking Educational Justice Through Using Mixed Methods: Paradigm, Pragmatism or Ethical Requirement?’ Discussant: Harry Torrance, MMU.