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Everyone’s Invited?: becoming response-able in addressing sexual harassment in primary, secondary and special schools

The first parliamentary inquiry report into sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools was launched in late 2016 by the Women and Equalities Committee. It included more than 70 submissions with a suite of 12 recommendations. Fast forward 5 years (post #metoo) and Sara Soma’s Everyone’s Invited (2021) social movement gathers over 50,000 testimonies, rousing further governmental responses and inquiries (this time by Ofsted 2020 and Estyn 2021).

With a growing number of children and young people speaking out, or being supported to speak out about their experience, this event asks some searching questions

  • What is the role of research and research data amidst the rise of a viral and vociferous call-out culture?
  • Who is responsible and able to respond to what is surfacing? Is everyone invited into the space of response-ability and preventative change? Who is included and excluded and how?
  • What concepts are being used by academics, policy makers and others to define and respond to what is a complex intersectional, socio-structural, cultural, affective, and technologically mediated phenomenon (e.g. harassment; cyber-flashing; abuse; bullying etc)
  •  What might a collective and collaborative praxis for change and transformation look like for educational researchers working in the field of gender and sexual violence?

Join us to engage with these questions and more at our annual Sexualities and Gender SIG online webinar this December. We bring together a wide range of feminist and queer scholar-activists in the field of critical gender and sexuality education studies, whose research and engagement in primary, secondary and special schools is interacting directly with policy and practice.

Programme:

13:00 Welcome and Introduction
EJ Renold & Josh Heyes SIG Convenors
13:15

#Metoo in British Schools: Young people’s changing understandings of sexual harassment at secondary school
Tanya Horeck, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge

13:30 Gender norms, lad culture, and sexual harassment in schools: exploring the links from school to higher education
Vanita Sundaram, York University & Carolyn Jackson, Lancaster University
13:45 Causing a stir’? School uniform and harassment in intersectional and new materialist perspective
Sara Bragg , University College London
14:00 GenTOPIA: Designing a digital game resource for 14-16 year olds to tackle gender-based and sexual abuse online
Debbie Ging, University of Limerick
14:15 Q&A
14:40 Comfort Break
14:55 The Kisstory Project: making consent matter in primary schools with an arts-activist praxis
EJ Renold, Cardiff University; Tuija Huuki, University of Oulu and Vicky Timperley, Cardiff University
15:10

Trans and Gender Diverse Children’s Experiences of Life in Primary Schools in Ireland
Aoife Neary, University of Limerick

15:25 Insights into entanglements with LGBTQ+ and neuro-diversity through creative methods with young people
Gabrielle Ivinson, Manchester Metropolitan University
15:40 ‘It’s Not OK’: Preventing sexism and sexual harassment in schools’ campaign toolkit
Lucy Russell, National Education Union
15:55 Q&A
16:20 Comfort Break
16:35 Policy and Practice Challenges in Addressing Sexual harassment in schools: panel discussion and networking
17:00 Close of meeting

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Chairs

Profile picture of EJ Renold
EJ Renold, Professor

Professor of Childhood Studies at Cardiff University

EJ Renold is a professor of Childhood Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. They are the author of Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities (2005), Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation (with Ringrose and Egan, 2015) and the...

Profile picture of Joshua Heyes
Joshua Heyes, Dr

University of Lincoln

Before coming to the world of educational research, I completed undergraduate and postgraduate studies at the University of Nottingham, during which I worked on sexual ethics and philosophy of religion. I then took up an exciting opportunity to...

Speakers

Profile picture of Tanya Horeck
Tanya Horeck, Professor

Professor of Film and Feminist Media Studies at Anglia Ruskin University

Tanya Horeck is Professor of Film and Feminist Media Studies at Anglia Ruskin University. She is the author of Public Rape: Representing Violation in Fiction and Film and Justice on Demand: True Crime in the Digital Streaming Era. Her current...

Vanita Sundaram, Dr

Senior Lecturer in Education at University of York

Vanita Sundaram is Professor of Education at the University of York. Her research broadly covers gender and education, focusing more specifically on gender-based violence and teenagers; tackling everyday sexism, harassment and abuse in education...

Profile picture of Carolyn Jackson
Carolyn Jackson, Professor

Professor of Gender and Education at Lancaster University

My research explores aspects of gender and education. Questions I investigate include: how do learner and gender identities intersect? What motives ‘laddish’ behaviours? What are the advantages and disadvantages of single-sex and...

Profile picture of Sara Bragg
Sara Bragg, Dr

Lecturer Sociology of Education IOE UCL's Faculty of Education and Society at Institute of Education

Sara Bragg is a lecturer in Sociology of Education at the Institute of Education, UCL’s Faculty of Education and Society and Programme Leader for the MA Social Justice and Education. Her research interests are in the areas of relationships and...

Profile picture of Debbie Ging
Debbie Ging, Dr

Associate Professor of Digital Media and Gender at Dublin City University

Dr. Debbie Ging is Associate Professor of Digital Media and Gender in the School of Communications. She teaches and researches on gender, sexuality and digital media, with a focus on digital hate, online anti-feminist men’s rights politics and...

Profile picture of EJ Renold
EJ Renold, Professor

Professor of Childhood Studies at Cardiff University

EJ Renold is a professor of Childhood Studies at the School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University. They are the author of Girls, Boys and Junior Sexualities (2005), Children, Sexuality and Sexualisation (with Ringrose and Egan, 2015) and the...

Profile picture of Tuija Huuki
Tuija Huuki, Dr

Research Fellow / Adjunct Professor at University of Oulu

Tuija Huuki is academy research fellow and Adjunct professor of Educational gender research at the University of Turku. She is the leader of the research team Gender, power and interaction in education in the Faculty of Education. Applying...

Profile picture of Aoife Neary
Aoife Neary, Dr

Lecturer in Sociology of Education at University of Limerick, Ireland

Aoife Neary (BSc, MA, PhD) is Senior Lecturer in Sociology of Education at the School of Education, University of Limerick, Ireland. Drawing on feminist, queer and affect theory, her research explores the politics of gender and sexuality in...

Profile picture of Gabrielle Ivinson
Gabrielle Ivinson, Professor

Professor of Education and Community at Manchester Metropolitan University

Gabrielle Ivinson’s primary research involves developing creative methodologies to engage communities and vulnerable young people and children living in post industrial areas (rural and urban) in times of austerity politics. Gabrielle is...

Profile picture of Lucy Russell
Lucy Russell, Ms

Gender Specialist at National Education Union

Lucy Russell is a freelance consultant currently working as the Gender Specialist for the National Education Union, the largest education union in Europe. She is the creator of the It’s Not OK: Preventing Sexism and Sexual Harassment Toolkit...