2021 Research Symposium
Landscapes of Relationships: Inspiration, exchange, and dialogue for the future of childhood
Inspiration Conference Room
“The values and perspectives of the educational project of Reggio Emilia, made visible in the lived experience of the Municipal preschools and infant toddler centres in Reggio Emilia, provide for so many of us a vision of what schools, teaching and learning could ‘look like’…a vision for the future from which we can draw great strength and inspiration.
As Australians, the resilience, strength and self-determination evident in the everyday lives of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people provides a source of immense inspiration. Australia’s First Nation Peoples who rightly embrace their Indigenous heritage and knowledge, tirelessly defend and advocate for improved Aboriginal rights and equity. Education, through relationships and truth telling, told from an Indigenous perspective, is the key to social change. Education has this responsibility and opportunity.” ~ Leanne Mits & Heather Conroy, 2021
Presentations and Speakers
Understanding our relationships to place, history and power: educating for social justice
This session will explore how the education institutions that we work within are shaped by where they are located, their history and its legacies, and the way power operates within them. I will examine how, as educators, our relationship to place, history and power in the spaces we work informs how and what we do – in the classroom, outside of the classroom, with the curriculum, with our education communities. I will propose that building our knowledge and consciousness of these relationships can enable us to create education communities that are stronger interpersonally and relationally, particularly for children and young people who may be marginalised or deemed to be disengaged and disadvantaged. This session will, therefore, offer some tools, opportunities and provocations for strengthening our capacity to educate for social justice.
Dr. Sophie Rudolph
Whirlpools of uncertainty
“Understanding a whirlpool isn’t about understanding water molecules; its about understanding the interaction of those molecules” (Lotto, 2017, p.7) This encounter between Deb Mann and Kerrie O’Neill explores the uncertainty of reconciliation or should we say conciliation inside an Australian ecology.
Lotto, B. (2017). Deviate: The Creative Power of Transforming your Perception. Orion Publishing Group.
Deb Mann & Kerrie O'Neill
Waking the sleeping giant
Mark will discuss indigenous research in education within the lens of the REAIE Research Symposium topic, Landscapes of Relationships: Inspiration, exchange, and dialogue for the future of childhood.
Professor Mark Rose
