STORIES  (STudents’  Ongoing  Research  In  Educational  Studies) is an annual conference hosted by the University of Oxford’s Department of Education. Our mission is to support graduate research and foster networks between students, faculty and colleagues across the field of education, from Oxford and beyond. We welcome papers from educational practitioners as well as graduate students offering a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives on education. Equally, we welcome presentations on both in-progress and completed research. Our 2021 theme is Resilience, Resistance and Reflexivity.

This year’s conference will be a two-day online event, hosted via Microsoft Teams on March 15th and 16th. Presentations will be ten minutes long, followed by panel questions/individual questions. Please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words for our consideration by midnight (UK time) on 21st February.

Submission Guidelines

All papers must be original. To present at STORIES2021, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words. Your 250-word abstract should include the following:

●Research Question(s)

●Description of sample population

●Overview of topic/theoretical framework

●Summary of Methods/Analysis (proposed/actual)

●Report of Findings (if applicable)

When submitting your abstract, please indicate whether the preferred format of the presentation is an oral presentation, poster presentation or panel discussion by including "ORAL", "POSTER", or "PANEL" in the title of your submission. Also, if you are interested in presenting your research in an engaging alternative setting, please let us know by indicating the required materials in your abstract.

Key dates

• Abstract submission deadline: 21st of Feb 2021 
• Notification of acceptance: 28th of Feb 2021
• Conference dates: 15th and 16th of Mar 2021  

Conference theme

Our theme for 2021 is Resilience, Resistance and Reflexivity in education. The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic continues to cause suffering and upheaval on a global scale. Teaching and learning, too, have been dramatically altered by the pandemic itself and the mitigation strategies employed by both national governments and education providers. School closures, online teaching, social distancing measures, travel restrictions, illness and grief have posed challenges to all stakeholders in education, including students, teachers, academics, families, schools and universities.

The adversity caused and exacerbated by Covid-19 is disproportionately suffered by those in a disadvantaged position - laying bare and worsening systematic inequalities and injustices, including in education. We believe that the compatible lenses of resilience, resistance and reflexivity can help educational researchers not only analyse these adversities but go further and begin to imagine solutions and new directions. We invite educational practitioners and graduate students to come together and envision more equitable and just forms of education.

Here are some of the ways in which we have been thinking about this year’s theme.

• Resilience is the capacity to adapt or recover quickly from adversity or, in other words, cope with turbulence. It might help us think about the ways  institutions, teachers and students have strived to cope with the crisis by adopting various physical and psychological measures. Equally, the pedagogies, materials and tactics developed by educators in efforts to continue to provide enriching teaching and learning in the digital space could be analysed through the lens of resilience. Beyond the context of the pandemic, resilience can provide a way to think about the challenges of remaining true to personal beliefs and values in face of pressure to do otherwise.
• Resistance involves refusal, opposition, protest, advocating alternatives… It is a common thread in work with an interest in or pedagogical commitment to: diversity, decolonisation, social activism and reforming educational policy. As a theme, it will help us think about educators' and policy-makers' responses to inequality and injustice, both in light of Covid-19 and the pre-existing systemic issues it has laid bare. We might think about ongoing campaigns around Free School Meals and laptop poverty. Equally, we might think about campaigns to decolonise curricula and the way the global impact of Black Lives Matter protests has reinvigorated demands to address structural racism. It will also help us think about the labour of resistance – from diversity work to campaigns against sexual violence to educational unions’ industrial action over pensions, pay or Covid-secure working conditions.
• Reflexivity is entwined with both of the above and comes in many forms. Here, we define reflexivity as the recognition of self within research and the inherent subjectivity we bring to the process. From our decisions on what to research to the access and presentation of our findings, reflexivity is an active, ongoing and critical process that permeates every stage of research. It allows us to reflect on and question how our own positionality, beliefs and values affect our decision making and sheds valuable light on the reasons why we undertake certain work or advance certain interpretations. We invite researchers to reflect critically on their positionality and role in the construction of knowledge.

We encourage you to interpret the significance of resilience, resistance and reflexivity yourself - both within the context of the pandemic and beyond.

Organising Committee

• Anay Nangalia (Co-chair)
• Lili Yang (Co-chair)
• Soyoung Lee
• Gabrielle Stewart
• Siyang Zhou
• Maria Lucia Sciamarelli
• Jisoo Seo
• Lucy Robinson
• Freya Marshall Payne
• Shuting Tan
• Minoli Wijetunga
• Fang Xu
• Amanda Lyons

Further information

• Website: To be announced
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/STORIESOxford
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stories_conference/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/storiesconf 

Contact

All questions about submissions should be emailed to stories.enquiry@gmail.com