Changing societies: transformative citizenship teaching

Five Nations Network Conference 2017 | Saturday 21 - Sunday 22 January | Dublin, Ireland

Workshops/Seminars Choices Form

Participants at the upcoming conference will have the opportunity to participate in two of the following seminars/workshops, one on Saturday 21 January and one on Sunday 22 January. Please select which one you would like to attend on each day. The workshop/seminar descriptions are at the bottom of the page.

In order for us to be able to accommodate your preferences in advance of the conference, please complete this form by 9.00am Tuesday 17 November.

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Workshop/Seminar Descriptions:

1. The role of active citizenship and participation in engaging, empowering and raising attainment [Seminar]
St. Eunan’s pupils develop as empowered active citizens through learning about real world issues and campaigning to bring about positive change in their community and wider world. In recent years we have developed a successful whole school interdisciplinary approach to global citizenship and learning for sustainability whereby children learn through real and motivating contexts such as the Global Goals and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This success was recognised this year by our achievement at winning a Scottish Education Award for Learning for Sustainability. In this session we will share the very significant impact our whole school approach has had on learners and explore some fundamental questions that have arisen, regarding expectations and differentiation. St Eunan’s school was a recipient of a Five Nations Development Project grant in 2015 for their ‘Food Equity for All’ project.

Seminar leaders: Claire Dunphy and Anne Docherty, St Eunan’s Primary School, Clydebank, Scotland

2. Journey to Justice [Workshop]
​At Journey to Justice we aim to help people feel able and equipped to take action for social justice, both in the realities of their own lives and in campaigns for change. The work makes connections between past struggles such as the US civil rights movement and present challenges to see how what people did in the past can affect how we deal with what affects us now. We look at what works in effecting change, and why.
The workshop will show – through film, storytelling and creative arts - how our model linking history, the arts and social change has been transformative for different groups of vulnerable young people and has touched people of all ages across the UK. 

​Workshop leaders: Parul Motin and Martin Spafford, Journey to Justice, England

3. Social Justice Education: empowering young people to take action within their local communities [Workshop]
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The Society of St Vincent de Paul has dedicated its history and work to the eradication of poverty and social exclusion. More recently, SVP Ireland developed a National Youth Development Programme whereby its main focus is ‘to provide positive opportunities for young people to engage in social action in local communities and encourages social and personal development.’

​This workshop will explore how we as educators approach active citizenship or social justice education with young people. Furthermore, it will focus on the importance of critical thinking within social justice research and action projects, the idea of youth-led action and how young people view social injustices in their world. In addition, the workshop will provided practical resources and pedagogical strategies in how to interact with young people within the classroom.

Workshop leader: Claire Morgan, St. Vincent de Paul Society, Northern Ireland

4. Education for Political Generosity: helping young people navigate politically complex societies [Workshop]

Young people are growing up in an uncertain political world and as such citizenship education has an increasingly important role to play in enhancing their 'critical citizenship'. This workshop will explore approaches to assisting young people in understanding the political complexity of the societies in which they are living, through classroom strategies designed to develop their capacity to think critically (that is, politically) about current local and global issues. In addition, the workshop will draw on research evidence from the teaching of controversial issues in Northern Ireland to explore the idea of fostering 'political generosity' amongst young people - a rights-based approach to political identity. The workshop will provide participants with the opportunity to examine how these transformative pedagogical principles can be applied in their own contexts.

Workshop leader: Lesley Emerson, School of Education and Centre for Children’s Rights, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland