Theorising young people's aspirations in a global context: An interdisciplinary conference

26 Mar 2018 to 27 Mar 2018

Hamilton Centre - Brunel University London

Book now 03/26/2018 09:30 AM 03/27/2018 04:30 PM Europe/London Theorising young people's aspirations in a global context: An interdisciplinary conference Timings: 9.30am to 5.30pm This interdisciplinary 2 day conference aims to advance conceptual understanding of how young people form, experience and deploy aspiration; the global institutions and processes that shape young people’s aspirations; and the outcomes of aspiration for young people and for wider society. Recent empirical research from diverse contexts worldwide has reported on the expressed desires of young people to ‘become someone’. Meanwhile, global institutions and national governments represent aspiration as a key to understanding inequality and a motivating force that can inspire social change. Aspiration is understood to play a key role in shaping young people’s engagement with education, politics and migration. Yet despite the burgeoning attention to aspiration in both research and policy, its theorisation remains relatively neglected. We welcome papers that address the theorisation of young people’s aspirations. These may consider, but need not be confined to, the following themes. Aspiration as an instrumental discourse: How is aspiration deployed as a tool of neoliberal governmentality? Is aspiration a prerequisite for social change? How do young people mobilise aspiration to project virtuous identities? Aspiration as an orientation to the future: What are the limits of aspiration an analytical concept? Does it shed valuable light on youth temporalities? How does it relate to other modes of orienting to the future such as hope, expectation, or desire? Aspiration as produced and productive: How do dominant norms shape aspiration? What roles are played by affect and emotion? How do aspirations relate to individual and collective agency? Knowing young people’s aspirations: How meaningful are speech-based research methods for understanding young people’s aspirations? What forms of research might give access to aspects of aspiration that are inarticulable? What do different disciplinary perspectives have to offer? Key Note speakers Professor Jo Boyden, University of Oxford Professor Sam Punch, University of Stirling For more information please read the concept note Monday 26 March 9-9.30 REGISTRATION AND COFFEE 9.30-9.45 WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION 9.45-11.15 KEYNOTE 1: JO BOYDEN. Promises, dreams and dereliction: how schools fail poor children 11.15-11.30 COFFEE 11.30-1 SCHOOL AS AN ASPIRATIONAL SYSTEM Sacrifice and Aspiration at a “Castle of Hope” Christine Finnan, College of Charleston, South Carolina When I used to Love Dubai: Identity, belonging, and aspirations among Indian school students in Dubai David Sancho, University of Sussex Dreams for the Future: "Time Work" in a Northeast Brazilian Private High School Michele Wisdahl, University of St Andrews NOT EARLY 26TH OR LATE 27TH PRODUCING SOCIAL MOBILITY THROUGH ASPIRATION? Girls’ and women’s educational mobility in Britain: Tracing historical crossroads of aspiration, participation, and policy Karin Eli, Christina de Bellaigue, Eve Worth, Tess Bird and Stanley Ulijaszek, University of Oxford 26TH “Because education is everything”: The capacity to aspire in South Asian Muslim families Michela Franceschelli, University College London 26TH Gender and choice: young women’s aspirations for family and employment Helena Pimlott-Wilson, Loughborough University 1-2 LUNCH 2-4PM INCULCATING ASPIRATION THROUGH SCHOOL “Teaching as Transaction”: The Tacit Approval of Consumerism in Government Schools Arshima Champa Dost, Brunel University London Uplifting and crushing at the same time? The brutalizing realities of aspiring students in Kenya Elizabeth Cooper, Simon Fraser University Learning aspirations from youth women teachers of residential schools in Chhattisgarh, India Rashmi Kumari, Rutgers University “Born free” to aspire Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani, University of Sussex KNOWING YOUNG PEOPLE’S ASPIRATIONS “If she works hard, she will reach a position like you”: Does participation in a longitudinal study of childhood poverty affect the aspirations of participating children and families? Gina Crivello, University of Oxford Children Reading and Talking about Aspirations: Researching Utopianism with Young Readers Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, University of Wroclaw and Anglia Ruskin University Accessing children’s aspirations through researchand consultations: child participation and the ‘responsible’ child Deirdre Horgan, University College Cork 26 March Mpuliliza! Combining ethnographic and participatory arts in child-led creative research practice and action with girls in urban Uganda Katie McQuaid, University of Leeds 4-4.15 COFFEE 4.15-5.45 THE PRODUCTION OF ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS Expecting to make it – How aspiration features in incubation spaces in Johannesburg Lieve de Coninck, University of Amsterdam Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid Catherine Dolan, SOAS, Dinah Rajak, University of Sussex “Mapping the future?” Schooling, situatedness and young people’s aspirations in Lesotho Claire Dungey, Brunel University London ASPIRATION AND THE REPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITIES The power of respectable aspirations Evelyne Baillergeau, University of Amsterdam 26TH “‘Here I can move freely, but behind this corner, it is just too dangerous!’: Aspirations and Socio-Spatial Mobility of Young Colombians in Cartagena de Indias. Sonja Marzi, University of East Anglia Intelligence: a tool of the powerful Simon Williams, University of Derby 6.45 DINNER Tuesday 27 March 9-10.30 KEYNOTE 2: SAM PUNCH: Generational Orderings as a Lens for Understanding Aspirations 10.30-10.45 COFFEE 10.45-12.15 SHIFTING ORIENTATIONS, SURVIVING UNFULFILLED DREAMS Aspiration, farming and the life course Charina Chazali, Akatiga, Bandung, Indonesia, Roy Huijsmans, International Institute of Social Studies, M. Vijayabaskar, Madras Institute of Development Studies “I’ll be doing what I love full time”: Illusio, capitals and young Londoners’ future aspirations Magdolna Lorinc, Middlesex University London Cruel hope: navigating a mismatch between aspirations and chances in neoliberal Egypt Harry Pettit, University of the West of England 27TH GENERATIONAL CHANGE IN ASPIRATIONS Aspirations of children in the culture of everyday violence in an urban slum in Bangladesh Jiniya Afroze, The Open University Exploring young people’s aspirations in Bangladesh and Ethiopia: age, gender and inter-generational differences Sarah Baird (George Washington University), Nicola Jones (ODI), Workneh Yadete (GAGE Ethiopia), Tassew Woldehanna (Addis Ababa University), Mohammed Ashraful Haque (IPA Bangladesh), Maheen Sultan (BIGD, BRAC University, Bangladesh) Youth shifting identities, moving aspirations and changing social norms in Ethiopia and Nepal Vicky Johnson and Andy West, Goldsmiths, University of London 12.15-1.15 LUNCH 1.15-2.15 THE DISCOURSE OF ASPIRATION Rural youth aspirations in development studies: an exercise in the defectology of youth Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies “Becoming no one”: Are apathetic youths really a problem? Ole Johannes Kaland, NLA University College ASPIRATION BEYOND THE INDIVIDUAL “They don’t give us any hope”: inequality, sexuality and aspiration among young people in Chile Marisol Verdugo Paiva, University of Manchester ‘On “being good”: theorizing un(der)employed educated young people’s aspirations in rural Indonesia’ Thijs Schut, University of Amsterdam 2.15-2.30 COFFEE 2.30-4.00 NEOLIBERALISM AND THE PRODUCTION OF ASPIRATION THROUGH MOBILITY Opportunities, Adventurers and Mother Hens: Educated Portuguese migrants in London and notions of family Lisa Rodan, University of Kent Aspiring for Employability: Transnational Academic Mobility from Montenegro Ieva Puzo, Riga Stradins University 27TH The Aspirations of Refugees. The Future in the New Home. A Literature Review Zubia Willmann Robleda, VID Specialised University, Centre for Mission and Global Studies, Stavanger YOUNG PEOPLE’S AGENCY AND SUBJECTIVITIES The selfie speaks a thousand words: Friendship, style and aspiration in an Indian city Rahul Advani, King’s College London "Realistic" Aspirations, Closed Future and Becoming a Subject of Vocational Education Avihu Shoshana, University of Haifa The obligation to return: How do different conceptualisations of filial duties affect the pursuit of personal aspirations among students and young professionals in Beijing and Taipei? Désirée Remmert, London School of Economics 4.00-4.30 ROUNDTABLE Abstract submission Please submit titles and abstracts (200 words max), along with names and affiliations of authors, to Claire.Dungey@brunel.ac.uk by Friday 9th February. REGISTRATION IS CLOSED - 21 MARCH Venue The conference will take place in the Hamilton Centre, Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH. Accommodation Can be booked at the Lancaster Hotel, 2 minutes walk to the conference venue Quote “Theorising aspiration” to receive the rates below: Accommodation on 26th March £60 Accommodation on 26th March including breakfast £68.75 Accommodation 27th March £60 Accommodation 27th March including breakfast £68.75 Lancaster hotel phone number: Tel +44 (0)18952 68006 Tel +44 (0)18952 68903 Lancaster hotel email: lancaster-suite@brunel.ac.uk For more information about our research project, please see www.education-aspiration.net FREE REGISTRATION FOR BRUNEL STAFF AND POSTGRADUATES- email; Claire.Dungey@brunel.ac.uk to register Options for public transport are avaiable, pelase see attached the campus map. If you are driving please sign in at the Eastern Gateway reception where you will receive a visitors parking permit. Hamilton Centre - Brunel University London Join our mailing list

Timings: 9.30am to 5.30pm

This interdisciplinary 2 day conference aims to advance conceptual understanding of how young people form, experience and deploy aspiration; the global institutions and processes that shape young people’s aspirations; and the outcomes of aspiration for young people and for wider society.

Recent empirical research from diverse contexts worldwide has reported on the expressed desires of young people to ‘become someone’. Meanwhile, global institutions and national governments represent aspiration as a key to understanding inequality and a motivating force that can inspire social change. Aspiration is understood to play a key role in shaping young people’s engagement with education, politics and migration. Yet despite the burgeoning attention to aspiration in both research and policy, its theorisation remains relatively neglected.

We welcome papers that address the theorisation of young people’s aspirations. These may consider, but need not be confined to, the following themes.

Aspiration as an instrumental discourse: How is aspiration deployed as a tool of neoliberal governmentality? Is aspiration a prerequisite for social change? How do young people mobilise aspiration to project virtuous identities?

Aspiration as an orientation to the future: What are the limits of aspiration an analytical concept? Does it shed valuable light on youth temporalities? How does it relate to other modes of orienting to the future such as hope, expectation, or desire?

Aspiration as produced and productive: How do dominant norms shape aspiration? What roles are played by affect and emotion? How do aspirations relate to individual and collective agency?

Knowing young people’s aspirations: How meaningful are speech-based research methods for understanding young people’s aspirations? What forms of research might give access to aspects of aspiration that are inarticulable? What do different disciplinary perspectives have to offer?

Key Note speakers

Professor Jo Boyden, University of Oxford

Professor Sam Punch, University of Stirling

For more information please read the concept note

	Monday 26 March
9-9.30	REGISTRATION AND COFFEE
9.30-9.45	WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION
9.45-11.15	KEYNOTE 1: JO BOYDEN. Promises, dreams and dereliction: how schools fail poor children
11.15-11.30	COFFEE
11.30-1	SCHOOL AS AN ASPIRATIONAL SYSTEM Sacrifice and Aspiration at a “Castle of Hope” Christine Finnan, College of Charleston, South Carolina When I used to Love Dubai: Identity, belonging, and aspirations among Indian school students in Dubai David Sancho, University of Sussex Dreams for the Future: "Time Work" in a Northeast Brazilian Private High School Michele Wisdahl, University of St Andrews NOT EARLY 26TH OR LATE 27TH	PRODUCING SOCIAL MOBILITY THROUGH ASPIRATION? Girls’ and women’s educational mobility in Britain: Tracing historical crossroads of aspiration, participation, and policy Karin Eli, Christina de Bellaigue, Eve Worth, Tess Bird and Stanley Ulijaszek, University of Oxford 26TH “Because education is everything”: The capacity to aspire in South Asian Muslim families Michela Franceschelli, University College London 26TH Gender and choice: young women’s aspirations for family and employment Helena Pimlott-Wilson, Loughborough University
1-2	LUNCH
2-4PM	INCULCATING ASPIRATION THROUGH SCHOOL “Teaching as Transaction”: The Tacit Approval of Consumerism in Government Schools Arshima Champa Dost, Brunel University London Uplifting and crushing at the same time? The brutalizing realities of aspiring students in Kenya Elizabeth Cooper, Simon Fraser University Learning aspirations from youth women teachers of residential schools in Chhattisgarh, India Rashmi Kumari, Rutgers University “Born free” to aspire Fawzia Haeri Mazanderani, University of Sussex	KNOWING YOUNG PEOPLE’S ASPIRATIONS “If she works hard, she will reach a position like you”: Does participation in a longitudinal study of childhood poverty affect the aspirations of participating children and families? Gina Crivello, University of Oxford Children Reading and Talking about Aspirations: Researching Utopianism with Young Readers Justyna Deszcz-Tryhubczak, University of Wroclaw and Anglia Ruskin University Accessing children’s aspirations through researchand consultations: child participation and the ‘responsible’ child Deirdre Horgan, University College Cork 26 March Mpuliliza! Combining ethnographic and participatory arts in child-led creative research practice and action with girls in urban Uganda Katie McQuaid, University of Leeds
4-4.15	COFFEE
4.15-5.45	THE PRODUCTION OF ASPIRING ENTREPRENEURS Expecting to make it – How aspiration features in incubation spaces in Johannesburg Lieve de Coninck, University of Amsterdam Speculative futures at the bottom of the pyramid Catherine Dolan, SOAS, Dinah Rajak, University of Sussex “Mapping the future?” Schooling, situatedness and young people’s aspirations in Lesotho Claire Dungey, Brunel University London	ASPIRATION AND THE REPRODUCTION OF INEQUALITIES The power of respectable aspirations Evelyne Baillergeau, University of Amsterdam 26TH “‘Here I can move freely, but behind this corner, it is just too dangerous!’: Aspirations and Socio-Spatial Mobility of Young Colombians in Cartagena de Indias. Sonja Marzi, University of East Anglia Intelligence: a tool of the powerful Simon Williams, University of Derby
6.45	DINNER

	Tuesday 27 March
9-10.30	KEYNOTE 2: SAM PUNCH: Generational Orderings as a Lens for Understanding Aspirations
10.30-10.45	COFFEE
10.45-12.15	SHIFTING ORIENTATIONS, SURVIVING UNFULFILLED DREAMS Aspiration, farming and the life course Charina Chazali, Akatiga, Bandung, Indonesia, Roy Huijsmans, International Institute of Social Studies, M. Vijayabaskar, Madras Institute of Development Studies “I’ll be doing what I love full time”: Illusio, capitals and young Londoners’ future aspirations Magdolna Lorinc, Middlesex University London Cruel hope: navigating a mismatch between aspirations and chances in neoliberal Egypt Harry Pettit, University of the West of England 27TH	GENERATIONAL CHANGE IN ASPIRATIONS Aspirations of children in the culture of everyday violence in an urban slum in Bangladesh Jiniya Afroze, The Open University Exploring young people’s aspirations in Bangladesh and Ethiopia: age, gender and inter-generational differences Sarah Baird (George Washington University), Nicola Jones (ODI), Workneh Yadete (GAGE Ethiopia), Tassew Woldehanna (Addis Ababa University), Mohammed Ashraful Haque (IPA Bangladesh), Maheen Sultan (BIGD, BRAC University, Bangladesh) Youth shifting identities, moving aspirations and changing social norms in Ethiopia and Nepal Vicky Johnson and Andy West, Goldsmiths, University of London
12.15-1.15	LUNCH
1.15-2.15	THE DISCOURSE OF ASPIRATION Rural youth aspirations in development studies: an exercise in the defectology of youth Ben White, International Institute of Social Studies “Becoming no one”: Are apathetic youths really a problem? Ole Johannes Kaland, NLA University College	ASPIRATION BEYOND THE INDIVIDUAL “They don’t give us any hope”: inequality, sexuality and aspiration among young people in Chile Marisol Verdugo Paiva, University of Manchester ‘On “being good”: theorizing un(der)employed educated young people’s aspirations in rural Indonesia’ Thijs Schut, University of Amsterdam
2.15-2.30	COFFEE
2.30-4.00	NEOLIBERALISM AND THE PRODUCTION OF ASPIRATION THROUGH MOBILITY Opportunities, Adventurers and Mother Hens: Educated Portuguese migrants in London and notions of family Lisa Rodan, University of Kent Aspiring for Employability: Transnational Academic Mobility from Montenegro Ieva Puzo, Riga Stradins University 27TH The Aspirations of Refugees. The Future in the New Home. A Literature Review Zubia Willmann Robleda, VID Specialised University, Centre for Mission and Global Studies, Stavanger	YOUNG PEOPLE’S AGENCY AND SUBJECTIVITIES The selfie speaks a thousand words: Friendship, style and aspiration in an Indian city Rahul Advani, King’s College London "Realistic" Aspirations, Closed Future and Becoming a Subject of Vocational Education Avihu Shoshana, University of Haifa The obligation to return: How do different conceptualisations of filial duties affect the pursuit of personal aspirations among students and young professionals in Beijing and Taipei? Désirée Remmert, London School of Economics
4.00-4.30	ROUNDTABLE

Abstract submission

Please submit titles and abstracts (200 words max), along with names and affiliations of authors, to Claire.Dungey@brunel.ac.uk by Friday 9th February.

REGISTRATION IS CLOSED - 21 MARCH

Venue

The conference will take place in the Hamilton Centre, Brunel University London, Kingston Lane, Uxbridge, UB8 3PH.

Accommodation

Can be booked at the Lancaster Hotel, 2 minutes walk to the conference venue

Quote “Theorising aspiration” to receive the rates below:

Accommodation on 26th March £60
Accommodation on 26th March including breakfast £68.75
Accommodation 27th March £60
Accommodation 27th March including breakfast £68.75

Lancaster hotel phone number:

Tel +44 (0)18952 68006

Tel +44 (0)18952 68903

Lancaster hotel email:

lancaster-suite@brunel.ac.uk

For more information about our research project, please see www.education-aspiration.net

FREE REGISTRATION FOR BRUNEL STAFF AND POSTGRADUATES- email; Claire.Dungey@brunel.ac.uk to register

Options for public transport are avaiable, pelase see attached the campus map.

If you are driving please sign in at the Eastern Gateway reception where you will receive a visitors parking permit.