Posters to plasticine (Nov 2014)

1^st November – poster presentation
 

Presented a poster of my research at the Herbert Art Gallery as part of the ESRC Festival of Social Sciences.

The exhibition aimed to improve public access to innovative research in Warwick and Coventry and was attended by the general public, academics, small business owners, and policymakers. 

See a pdf of my poster here.

6^th November – The Spirit of ‘45

Attended a Q&A to hear director Ken Loach talk about his new documentary ‘The Spirit of 1945’. A film showing broken promises made by the Labour party, nationalisation, and the subsequent dismantling of the welfare state over time. During discussions at the end a member of the audience said, what can we do to protect our NHS? Our welfare? Loach suggested that socialist parties group together and co-ordinate, with voters supporting one another, negotiating and backing the Green Party (as an example), and in that way trying to ensure welfare is not further degraded by the current government. Gave me a lot to think about. I really enjoyed the way that the documentary captured the stories of real people and how the welfare state benefited them and how it's removal is detrimental to our quality of life.

12^th November – Plasticine #IEIM14

'Inequality in Education - Innovation in Methods' Conference, University of Warwick

Organised by Siobhan Dytham and Carlie Ria Rowell.

The event was about innovation - what it is, why do it, and does it improve our research? 

Keynote speakers included         Prof. Melanie Nind (University of Southampton)

 Dr Nicola Ingram (University of Bath)

I very much enjoyed talking to everyone, like Nicola Ingram who I had met previously at a BSA education conference in London, and Jessica Heal and her co-workers from TeachFirst. It was great to hear about the research that they were doing in education to hear from young people how they benefited from different teaching styles, and the way in which this was fed back to teachers to improve practices.

Nicola Ingram’s talk included the use of innovative techniques, like using art. During her presentation plasticine was given to every table and the audience created models to represent their academic selves and chat about the result. Here is mine. Please feel free to comment on what you think it might be!

Other speakers included Nadena Doharty, Farhat Syyeda, Lauren Doak, and Jacqui Shepherd

One thing which I took away from the day was that there is a large underrepresentation of people from “lower functioning autistic spectrums” for instance due to a lack of innovation in research methods. This conference was a call for the inclusivity of research.