Conference Title: Education and Migration: Language Foregrounded
Date and place: 21-23 (Friday – Sunday) October, 2016, School of Education, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom
The purpose of this international conference is to bring together researchers and educators who are researching and working in educational contexts where human beings, and their language(s), are under pain and pressure. Ongoing and forced migration—resulting from protracted civil war, unremitting poverty and economic hardship, and political unrest and ecological instability—often results in the termination of education for some, or entry into new learning contexts for others. This situation of heightened mobility in recent times, although not new, opens up opportunities and challenges for educators and policy makers in considering how languages, too, may be under pain and pressure.
What possibilities and complexities emerge as new arrivals bring their multiple languages into schools and education centres in new communities such as refugee camps, or in established communities in civil society? What opportunities emerge with the arrival of children and adults who bring multiple languages and mobile experiences into the classroom? How can and do teachers and students learn and benefit from the multiple languages present? What opportunities arise for educational practitioners, leaders, and policy makers in building on the presence of multiple languages and their users?
This international conference offers a timely space for interdisciplinary and inter-practitioner and researcher dialogue on these questions, and many more, concerning languages and (intercultural) education in times of migration; and to do so with a specific regard for the implications for the language policies, practices, and possibilities of the schools and other educational institutions where there are increasing levels of migration and amplified multilingualism.
Keynotes
- Alison Phipps, University of Glasgow
- Hiliary Footitt, University of Reading
- Martha Bigelow, University of Minnesota
Call for abstracts
We invite papers and panels that address the themes of the conference. Please submit a title, abstract of 300-350 words. Panels (or 3 or 4 participants) should include a title, brief introduction (50 words), abstract for each speaker (150-200 words each). Please include a brief bio of about 100 words for each speaker (include name and institution(s)).
Abstracts of papers and panels should be emailed to
Full information on the conference can be found on the conference website.