Call for Papers
The 9th European Conference on Education (ECE2021) is an interdisciplinary conference held at University College London (UCL), UK, from July 15–18, 2021. (ECE offers online presentation options).
The 9th European Conference on Education (ECE2021)
Unable to travel due to coronavirus restrictions?
Join us in London (and online) for ECE2021!
July 15–18, 2021 | UCL, Institute of Education, London, UK
Welcome to The 9th European Conference on Education (ECE2021), held in partnership with Birkbeck, University of London, the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, and in affiliation with the Institute of Education (IoE), University of London (UCL).
ECE2021 encourages academics and scholars to meet and exchange ideas and views in an international forum stimulating respectful dialogue. This event will afford an exceptional opportunity for renewing old acquaintances, making new contacts, networking, and facilitating partnerships across national and disciplinary borders.
Since its founding in 2009, IAFOR has brought people and ideas together in a variety of events and platforms to promote and celebrate interdisciplinary study, and underline its importance. IAFOR continues to engage in many cross-sectoral projects across the world, including those engaging leading universities (Virginia Tech, UCL, Singapore Management University, University of Belgrade, Lingnan University, Barcelona University, University of Hawai’i, Moscow State University), think tanks, research organisations and agencies (the East-West Center, The Center for Higher Education Research, The World Intellectual Property Organization), and collaborative projects with governments, and international governmental organisations (Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office, the United Nations in New York), media agencies (The Wall Street Journal, JWT, HarperCollins).
With the IAFOR Research Centre at Osaka University, we have engaged in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international public policy conversations and outcomes.
IAFOR's unique global platform facilitates discussion around specific subject areas, with the goal of generating new knowledge and understanding, forging and expanding new international, intercultural and interdisciplinary research networks and partnerships. We have no doubt that ECE2021 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice and for the meeting of people and ideas.
The 9th European Conference on Education (ECE2021) will be held alongside The 9th European Conference on Language Learning (ECLL2021). Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other.
We look forward to seeing you in London!
– The ECE2021 Organising Committee
Kwame Akyeampong, University of Sussex, United Kingdom
Anne Boddington, Kingston University, United Kingdom
Steve Cornwell, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) & Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan
Jean-Marc Dewaele, Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom
Joseph Haldane, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
Jo Van Herwegen, University College London (UCL) Institute of Education, United Kingdom
Brian Hudson, University of Sussex, United Kingdom
Barbara Lockee, Virginia Tech, United States
Zachary Walker, University College London (UCL) Institute of Education, United Kingdom
IAFOR Journal of Education (Scopus Indexed Journal)
This conference is associated with the Scopus and DOAJ listed IAFOR Journal of Education.
Key Information
- Venue & Location: UCL, Institute of Education, London, UK (and online)
- Dates: Thursday, July 15, 2021 to Sunday, July 18, 2021
- Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: February 26, 2021*
- Final Abstract Submission Deadline: April 30, 2021
- Registration Deadline for Presenters: June 04, 2021
*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.
Our Response to the Ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) Global Pandemic
Present, Publish, Participate On-site or Online
Continued excellence in service, wherever you are
Our commitment to you; academics, scholars and educators around the world, is to continue to run conferences where and how possible, but in the full knowledge that in these unprecedented and changing times, we must engage as much as is possible online, allowing those who choose not to travel, or who cannot travel, opportunities to present, publish and participate online.
Flexibility
Given the uncertainties surrounding travel restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic, and related and evolving government responses, we understand that potential delegates’ plans may be subject to change beyond their control, and indeed many people may not be able to travel to our conferences. We will be as flexible as we can our side to allow delegates to switch registration types between “on-site” and “online” depending on their circumstances, up until one month before the conference, so that you can be assured that whatever your situation, you can still present, publish and participate.
About IAFOR’s Education Conferences
IAFOR promotes and facilitates new multifaceted approaches to one of the core issues of our time, namely globalisation and its many forms of growth and expansion. Awareness of how it cuts across the world of education, and its subsequent impact on societies, institutions and individuals, is a driving force in educational policies and practices across the globe. IAFOR’s conferences on education have these issues at their core. The conferences present those taking part with three unique dimensions of experience, encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating heightened intercultural awareness and promoting international exchange. In short, IAFOR’s conferences on education are about change, transformation and social justice. As IAFOR’s previous conferences on education have shown, education has the power to transform and change whilst it is also continuously transformed and changed.
Globalised education systems are becoming increasing socially, ethnically and culturally diverse. However, education is often defined through discourses embedded in Western paradigms as globalised education systems become increasingly determined by dominant knowledge economies. Policies, practices and ideologies of education help define and determine ways in which social justice is perceived and acted out. What counts as "education" and as "knowledge" can appear uncontestable but is in fact both contestable and partial. Discourses of learning and teaching regulate and normalise gendered and classed, racialised and ethnicised understandings of what learning is and who counts as a learner.
In many educational settings and contexts throughout the world, there remains an assumption that teachers are the possessors of knowledge which is to be imparted to students, and that this happens in neutral, impartial and objective ways. However, learning is about making meaning, and learners can experience the same teaching in very different ways. Students (as well as teachers) are part of complex social, cultural, political, ideological and personal circumstances, and current experiences of learning will depend in part on previous ones, as well as on age, gender, social class, culture, ethnicity, varying abilities and more.
IAFOR has several annual conferences on education across the world, exploring common themes in different ways to develop a shared research agenda which develops interdisciplinary discussion, heightens intercultural awareness and promotes international exchange.
Call for Papers
The ECE Organising Committee welcomes papers from a wide variety of interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and submissions are organised into the following streams:
- Teaching & Learning
- Educational Structures
- Community & Society
- Language & Culture
- Psychology, Mind & Brain
- Innovation & Technology
- Special Themes and Areas of Focus
Upon abstract submission, authors will have the opportunity of identifying whether their paper addresses either the 2020 IAFOR Special Theme and/or one of the ongoing IAFOR Special Areas of Focus (see below).
Special Themes and Areas of Focus
Authors have the optional opportunity of identifying whether their paper addresses either the 2021–2022 IAFOR Special Theme and/or one of the ongoing IAFOR Special Areas of Focus.
IAFOR 2021–2022 Special Theme: “Resilience”
Resilience is the ability to resist being affected, or to recover readily from setback and adversity, and the past year has been one of enormous turbulence and upheaval. Nobody has been left untouched by the impact of the global pandemic, and great change has been forced upon us all.
COVID-19 has underlined the extent to which we suffer together as one, but also how the experience of a global pandemic has been very different and unequal. This has had a woeful impact on the already marginalised and dispossessed, further evidencing that countries are not equal in their ability to provide for and protect their people. The pandemic has also created questionable narratives and false dichotomies in approaches to finding solutions to the myriad problems that COVID-19 has either caused or exacerbated.
Humans can be by turn extraordinarily delicate, and remarkably resilient and we are now living through and witnessing an extraordinary period of history. However, as with any period of great change, there is a window of opportunity that follows where one has the chance to enact and bring about change for the better. The pandemic has also allowed many of us the space to rethink our relationship with both ourselves and those immediately around us, but also with the wider world. This is a crisis both global and local, both shared and individual.
That time to rethink and reimagine is now as we attempt to regroup and rebuild. We need to build back, but do so in a way that is better, stronger and fairer. Forged by adversity, we have the opportunity to follow divergent paths towards a future that we help create, and where, to borrow Heaney, hope and history may rhyme.
IAFOR Special Areas of Focus
In line with its organisational mission, IAFOR encourages, facilitates and nurtures interdisciplinary research, with an emphasis on international and intercultural perspectives. Current areas of focus of the organisation include the following ongoing collaborative programmes and initiatives.
About IAFOR
“Inspiring Global Research Collaborations”
Founded in 2009, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) is a politically independent non-partisan and non-profit interdisciplinary think tank, conference organiser and publisher dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating intercultural awareness and promoting international exchange, principally through educational interaction and academic research. Based in Japan, its main administrative office is in Nagoya, and its research centre is in the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), a graduate school of Osaka University. IAFOR runs research programs and events in Asia, Europe and North America in partnership with universities and think tanks, and has also worked on a number of multi-sector cooperative programs and events, including collaborations with the United Nations and the Government of Japan. Read more about IAFOR.