Our Focus

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The Centre for Comparative and International Education, in the Department of Education, University of Oxford, in partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation and the Global Centre for Pluralism announces its 2nd Oxford Symposium in Comparative and International Education (OXSCIE) from 19th-20th June 2018 at Keble College, Oxford. This year, we examine critically the complex intersections between education, uncertainty and the changing nature of society. 

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The rapidly changing shape of the global political landscape has created for people everywhere uncertainties about their social, economic, demographic and climatological futures; and uncertainties about the future interact to change the nature of society, and threaten openness, pluralism and cohesion. Now seems a particularly important time to to ask what kind of society we want, and what role education might play in achieving it. 

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The question for OXSCIE 2018, then, is ‘how can we, through education, best shape and sustain a society that is at once plural and cosmopolitan, prosperous and inclusive, fair and responsible, and cohesive?’ Moreover, how might we understand and document the social, cultural and economic pathways selected by young people and their families to navigate the changing nature of society?

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OXSCIE 2018 invites 150 delegates from around the world to ask the 'big' questions about education and the future; about the kind of world we want, and in spite of contestation, how we might secure it.

 

But it is not answers we seek – for there appears to be too many. The purpose of OXSCIE is to sharpen the questions we ask of education in the face of global uncertainties and societies that seem evermore to be fraying at the margins.

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Our Aims

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The aims of OXSCIE 2018 are five-fold:

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• (1) To ask what role education might play in the face of ever changing external influences that threaten the nature of society and the shared futures of citizens;

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• (2) To ask what it is we might expect of teaching as poverty, inequality, prejudice, discrimination, and other forms of social and spatial divisions increase rather than recede in contemporary society;

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• (3) To ask, as modern economies and institutions lay waste to the learning poor, how we might better understand and document the transitional experiences of children and young people.

 

OXSCIE 2018 forms part of a larger programme of research on the relationship between uncertainty and education. And an important focus of the programme is the design of new empirical studies that enable us to document the cultural, social, and emotional pathways of young people throughout the first two decades of their lives. OXSCIE 2018 invites discussion and participation in the design of a new suite of longitudinal studies that follow and record the life worlds and life choices of children and young people from year 2020 to 2030. We invite delegates to engage in high-level round table discussions during OXSCIE to fulfill two final aims: 

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• (4) To explore and discuss the impact of uncertainty and the changing nature of society on children's lives and learning pathways during the first decade of life (0-10 years old). 

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• (5) To explore and discuss the impact of uncertainty and the changing nature of society on children's lives and learning pathways during the second decade of life (11-20 years old). 

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Our Format

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Keynote speakers and plenary panels will focus on the following areas:

 

1.  Re-Shaping Society: Education in Uncertainty

2.  Shoring-Up Society: Teaching in Uncertainty

3.  Navigating Society: Learning in Uncertainty 

4.  Investing in Society: Responsibility in Uncertainty

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Plenary sessions will be followed by high-level round table discussions that focus on:

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• Key intersections between education, uncertainty and the changing nature of society.

• Impact of uncertainty/society on children's learning pathways during the 1st decade of life.

• Impact of uncertainty/society on children's learning pathways during the 2nd decade of life.

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​The final plenary session will look at the role and responsibilities of philanthropy in education and society in how to build a coalition of partnerships to better understand, monitor and document the social, emotional, and cultural pathways of young people through education. 

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Our Agenda, Delegates, Round Tables, and Essay Winners

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OXSCIE 2018 will welcome delegates for a two day programme from the 19th-20th of June, 2018. Please click below to download the various resources for OXSCIE 2018.