Portuguese
Por isto, o comportamento dos oprimidos
é um comportamento prescrito.
Faz-se à base de pautas
estranhas a eles – as pautas dos opressores.
Paulo Freire
The Paulo Freire Institute – United Kingdom & Inequalities Research, Societies and Education and the School Education held the 10th Biannual Conference about Gender Association and Education (GAE), held in the University of Roehampton, in London, from June 24 to 26.
At the beginning a Pre-Conference has been held, as a workshop, for doctorates and researchers with recent career and articles published in periodicals. The Conference held afterwards, has been organized by Professor Debbie Epstein and Dr. Marie-Pierre Moreau together with Dr. Kate Hoskin, Professor Gill Crozier, Professor Penny Jane Burke, Dr. Sarah O’ Flyn and Katja Jonsas, nevertheless the succes of the event happened, in great part, due to the support and commitment of Julia Noyce and her team from the Roehampton Conference Office.
The 245 participants of the conference came from different continents around the world and all of them agreed that the meeting was the biggest one held between all the ten Conferences of the Association of Gender and Education. Under the spectrum of Feminism, Power and Pedagogy, the articles included such diverse topics as the capacity to teach and learn, queer pedagogies, the inclusion of students with difficulties in the regular teaching and post-humanist methodologies, just to make reference to a few.
The complete program and the abstract of the articles may be found in: http://www.gendereducation.com/conferences-and-events/2015-gea-conference-programme/
The opening of the Conference has been done by Marilyn Holness, Director of the School of Education, with a moving talk, expounded about the commitment of the University and from the School with the questions regarding gender and equality. The first panelist was the Teacher Marília Pinto de Carvalho (USP) that talked about the domination of creation of knowledge by the North hemisphere and challenged the participants to think about the subject.
Professor Marília Pinto de Carvalho (USP) at Gender Conference and Education: experience of success.
Other panelists were present: Professor Lois Weis (SUNY), addressing the heteronormativity and work committed of mothers of students of elitist schools in the United States to help their children to get in the universities of the Ivy League 1; Professor Penny Jane Burke (Roehampton) talking about qustions of gender, emotions, pedagogical relationships of difference; Professor Farzana Shain talking about the impact of the “War to Terror” in the schools and in the subjectivity of educators and the teacher Katarina Brajas Eriksson (Linköping University), who talked about how films may be used pedagogically, and are, themselves, an instrument for the promotion of discussions of gender and other diversities, in public schools.
The plenary session had the presence of a group of activists that discussed the work they do and the relation of their practice with the academy. They also inspired those who were present showing presentations of Amaranta Thompson (Initiative of the International Women) and Anke Adams (Camfes). The top of the session has been the presentation of Ifra and Muna Hassan showing the work done by the Integrate Bristol, an institution of charity, managed by young people that fight against feminine genital mutilation and other forms of gender violence.
Considering that England is leader in the European ranking of feminine mutilations, the sisters Hassan, courageous, amusing and intelligent, have been activists since the age of thirteen (today they are 21 years old). Together with other companions of the Integrate Bristol, confronted Michael Gove and convinced him to send letters to all schools of England saying that they had the responsibility to provide education about the feminine genital mutilation and to give support to the students that were afraid to suffer this violence or those who already had went trough, as a matter of fact, suffered this violence. This first plenary was followed by many workshops, with different activists, during the two other days of the event.
Generally speaking, the Conference has been a success for the Roehampton and for the Gender Association and Education. The commentaries in the social nets included: “It was a wonderful conference and the work that you accomplish to make it possible in order to happen was profoundly admirable”; “Thank you for such a wonderful week”; “It has been an impressive meeting among activists, intellectuals, feminists and teaching professionals”.
Content submitted by Penny Burke of the Institute Paulo Freire England: P.Burke@roehampton.ac.uk
1. The Ivy League is a group of eight private universities of Northeast of the United States. At the moment the denomination has a meaning above all of academic excellence.