BERA invites expressions of interest from those who would like to act as a convenor for the BERA Children and Childhoods SIG.

The aim of Children and Childhoods SIG is to explicate, develop, and enhance understandings of children and young people and their childhoods. This includes: how childhoods are shaped socially, historically and culturally, and how the ‘relational child’ experiences the educational institutions and forces that mediate their life. It concerns children as objects and / or subjects for study, and the spaces and places in which childhood occurs, particularly formal and informal education. A strength of the SIG is that it enables interrogation of the boundaries and transitions in children’s lives, including from early years to childhood, childhood to adolescence, adolescence and beyond, and how these are shaped and informed by education.

The SIG will create a forum for academics, practitioners, and students to engage critically in debates of the contested nature of childhood; for example, as a socio-biological construction, a hybrid of interdisciplinary subjectivities, or from the standpoint of the agentic, relational child. Importantly the SIG will bring together colleagues with wide-ranging interests to contribute to knowledge development and exchange, not least around the burgeoning research into the nature and meanings of children’s well-being and resilience. At the same time the SIG will seek to establish dialogue with and between other BERA SIGs, including Early Childhood Education and Care, Youth Studies and Informal Education, Social Justice, and Sexualities, in order to draw together and share the respective assemblages of knowledge and understanding within BERA about the complexity and diversity of children’s lives.

If you are interested in the Children and Childhoods SIG Convenor position, please submit an expression of interest here by June 25, 2021.

You must be a paid and up-to-date BERA member to apply.