SERA Conference 2023

Meeting global and local challenges through interdisciplinary partnerships and collaborations in education

Venue: Queen Margaret University, Musselburgh,

Dates: Wednesday 22nd- Friday 24th November, 2023

The SERA Annual Conference is an important event for the educational research community in Scotland. The three-day conference, to be held at Queen Margaret University from 22-24 November 2023, invites researchers and practitioners working in Scottish and international research contexts to share their insights under the theme of Meeting global and local challenges through interdisciplinary partnerships and collaborations in education. Contributions that discuss the challenges and pose solutions are welcomed. These may include conceptual understandings of how we frame these issues, interdisciplinary views on how to research challenging contexts, and empirical work that can evidence possible solutions in action. Contributions that extend last year’s theme of reconnection via interdisciplinary partnerships and collaborations are welcomed.

Living in a world that has been described as being in permanent crisis (giving rise to the term permacrisis) linked to global climate change, a growing disparity in wealth accumulation and threats to democracy via surveillance and misapplication of machine learning has seriously impacted how educators prepare children for what may come next.

The 2023 SERA Conference offers an opportunity to contribute to ongoing discussions about how we think, research and respond to the challenges surrounding us. Building on last year’s discussions around reconnection, there is a need for education to be adaptable and creative to a world in flux. The 2023 SERA Conference seeks to examine the ways in which the world of education has responded globally and locally to these challenges. This however invites us to consider a series of questions:

  1. How do we identify challenges?
  2. In responding to challenges, how do we ensure our responses are in keeping with concepts of social justice, equality and diversity that promote human flourishing?
  3. What types/forms/functions of research best allow us to examine challenges and offer potential solutions?
  4. How can research contribute to policy that enables educational communities and spaces to grow and flourish?
  5. What practices are needed to address challenges and offer solutions that engender flourishing for all?
  6. What role do we see educational partnerships, interdisciplinary approaches and transdisciplinary ways of thinking, being and doing, in addressing challenges and offering solutions?
  7. How do we sustain this work in a world described as being in constant flux

The conference theme welcomes original and critical contributions from scholars and practitioners from a wide range of disciplines and educational settings that explore the above questions through practice, scholarship, conceptual thinking, and empirical research.