FORUM: for promoting 3 to 19 comprehensive education – Call for Papers Summer 2022: Issue 64.2

Posted on 15/02/2022

Pockets of Resistance: Taking back control from within our education systems

Contributions are invited for issue 64.2 (Summer 2022) of FORUM, for which the copy date is Monday 25 April.

As the Government appears to seek tighter control of/over many aspects of our education systems from ploughing forth with the Reception Baseline Assessment to a full reaccreditation of Initial Teacher Education providers in Higher Education, we seek to uncover the ‘below the surface’ resistances. Where and how are educationalists finding ways to survive – and even potentially thrive – despite top-down control and rising pressures for conformity? Where are there examples of individuals or collectives finding an alternative route within the systems, enabling them to remain true to their values while still ‘doing’ or ‘performing’ the required directives? Are there real opportunities being utilised to hear and include the student voice?

In this call, we take the theme of ‘Pockets of Resistance’ quite broadly, welcoming contributions examining all aspects of change or resistance within. This may include, but certainly not be limited to, writing which illustrates, exemplifies or advocates approaches which draw attention to better, ‘progressive’ or non-delivery-based pedagogy, which attempt to broaden the curriculum (perhaps in line with local as well as wider issues, BLM, the climate crisis and so on), and which campaign for, or even achieve, more enabling approaches to assessment.

Whether you are an educational practitioner, an academic, a campaigner, a trade union activist, or involved in education in another capacity, at all levels of education, we’d be glad to hear from you, especially if you are involved in making changes within an educational setting which align with the comprehensive ideal.

Contributors are welcome to contact Rachel Marks in the first instance to discuss any aspect of their article. When submitting your article, please include a short abstract – between 70 and 120 words is plenty – and a sentence or two of autobiographical information, as well as a publishable contact email address. The copy-date for this issue of FORUM is Monday 25 April. You are of course welcome to send in your article sooner.

Articles for this issue of FORUM should be between 1500 and 3500 words. We offer a platform for writing which is heartfelt as well as thought-through. Contributors are encouraged to say what they think needs saying in the way they feel it needs to be said. FORUM is not peer-reviewed, though the Editor and/or members of the Editorial Board will read and respond to all contributions. Past issues of the journal are available online at our new web address: https://lwbooks.co.uk/journal/forum   Save for those very recently published, articles are freely downloadable.

With best regards,
Rachel Marks
Lead Issue Editor, FORUM: for comprehensive education
r.g.marks@brighton.ac.uk