'Citizenship and Identity: socio-economic inequality, political identity and participation'. Reflections on the 2014 Five Nations Conference in Belfast (2)

By Alice Bigge, Head of KS3 Citizenship and PSHE, Worle Community School, England

The Five Nations Network conference in Belfast was outstanding. It was an honour to be invited and the event exceeded my expectations. I found it refreshing to be able to network with policy makers, practitioners and other stakeholders with an interest in citizenship and values education. This diverse range of people really helped to generate interesting discussions about socio-economic inequality, political identity and participation. I particularly enjoyed the seminar ‘Palimpsest - debunking the myth of a single identity’. This session was thoroughly engaging and I drew inspiration from seeing examples of how community art projects can be used to help resolve conflict. In addition to this the seminar explaining the WIMPS project which used digital media to promote political action was very interesting and made me realise how important it is to utilise technology in this way. The organization of this event and the quality of speakers was superb. I hope to be able to attend all future conferences with the Five Nations Network.