Episode 1 : Introduction_Conversations with four hosts

Jul 7

25 min read

Updated: Aug 2

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TRANSCRIPT

Adam Peter Lang (0:11)

We are really delighted to have people on board today from a range of different backgrounds, and also an international dynamic to this new podcast. And really, it is about citizenship and human rights education in this post COVID world. As we know, we are in such geopolitical times with things changing. And what is taking place in Ukraine at the moment makes it so important that we discuss these matters. In a minute, I am going to introduce you to my fellow colleagues that are setting up this programme, Kamille, Rowena, Stella and Dain. We also have the support and endorsement of Professor Hugh Starkey, who is an expert in the field of citizenship and human rights education at UCL and he will be joining us in future podcasts. This is our first podcast, so you will be with us, please, while we just sort of get it going, the group came out, you might want to know this, it came out of a sort of citizenship group that we have been running for a few years now at UCL, our reading groups, various groups that have met online and in person. And during the pandemic seems a long time ago, when the pandemic first started, we came together as a group, partly because we wanted a doctoral community to support each other. Most of us were locked down in different parts of the world, are finding it very difficult, but also to communicate. But we wanted to keep communicating about what citizenship was, what it should look like in the future, and how it was impacting us now. And as I say, there were people from all over the globe on that podcast from Turkey, from the States, London, Korea, and Chile, for example. So that's where we came about. And we were trying to be positive, but also realistic. We also wanted to make some presentations. And we have done that as a group. We presented at a number of international conferences last summer, including the Scuola Democratica Conference, in Sardinia at the second international conference, we have actually produced a paper, which has been published. So, we came together to think about how we can take this a step further, and some of us have got experience with podcasts, the British Educational Research Association (BERA), they do a really good podcast, and some of us have been involved in some of those. So, we came to the view that we might move into this new age, by gathering people together and opening ourselves up to a wider dynamic. So, if I could just finish that is my introduction, just quickly just to read you what our key purpose is if you don't mind. And we say the pandemic has brought the socio-economic inequalities and racial conflict issues in which citizenship education, researchers and practitioners and we are very pleased to welcome teachers, social workers, youth workers, and NGOs and so on. The way we are seeking some educational responses to the pandemic. Most existing responses, however, we have noticed tend to be national, in scope, despite the fact that the social and educational issues are themselves global, with global citizens. And this project seeks to connect an international audience of academics, researchers, and practitioners, primarily through this new podcast format, about a range of themes related to the issues of education, human rights education and citizenship. And we are trying to make sure that each episode has a sort of theme. It has a topic that we are going to look at. And also we are trying to each time have a book review relevant to what we are talking about to try and broaden the base. So many issues we are going to be hopefully looking at are some key issues facing young people today, digital citizenship, migration issues and goodness I am that not in for at the moment, peacebuilding education, social justice education, global crises of all types at the moment, climate crisis, gender politics and identity politics. They are just some of the topics, but we are hoping that this is going to be a dynamic group, so we're hoping that people are coming on to the podcast or want to contribute to the future. So that is you guys out there. and you will be raising topics that you feel are important for us to look at from every corner of the world. So that's me, I'm Adam Peter Lang. And just to finish, I'm a former London secondary school teacher, and school leader. And I am now at UCL working very slowly, actually, on PhD research, but I also do some projects and international projects on leadership and education. And I write and comment in the UK, on issues to do with education. So, I am really delighted to be introducing this, we are all going to take it in turns to introduce the podcasts as we go through the future weeks. And so let me without further ado, introduce you to our colleagues. If that's okay, maybe Stella would like to say a little bit about herself, and why she's particularly engaged and attracted to this project. Stella?

Stella Micheong Cheong (6:00)

Hi, everyone. I'm Stella Micheong Cheong, from Korea, originally South Korea. I would like to introduce myself as a research activist, peacebuilder and human rights education scholar. Before starting my PhD, I have been worked as a researcher as well as a curriculum developer in South Korea, especially the research institution, where is affiliated with the Ministry of Education, and I have been involved in a lot of national and international educational research projects, and also the ODA projects to improve education systems or curriculum reforms globally. And I completed my PhD last year. My research focused more on peace education, but more specifically, I theorise the peacebuilding citizenship education in the context of the Korean unification. As I told you, as a research activist, I really want to contribute to change or improve society to make a better world. When I was a freshman at Yonsei University,

I read a book about education, named ‘the aims of education and other essays’, written by Alfred North Whitehead. His well-known statement on education became my vision as an educator, that is, “education with an inert idea is not only useless, but it is above all harmful”. So, I decided to be a theorist with a practical mind. And then, I hope through this podcast project, I want to contribute to the people to think about the meaning of citizenship and peace or the mind of peace and peacebuilding. And through conversations with a wide variety of scholars, practitioners and students, we also share our wisdom and knowledge. Thank you.

Adam Peter Lang (8:20)

Thank you, Stella, and Stella is very influential within our group. She is also a great inspiration to all of us and beyond, but she is also a key driving force of the group and keeps our momentum going. So, thank you very much, Stella. Now, we're moving on to Kamille.

Kamille Beye (8:40)

Hello, everybody. My name is Kamille Beye. I am based in the United States. My background is a little bit of a hodgepodge. I started out as a secondary education teacher who taught history and African Studies in the United States. And then I transitioned to working in Africa on education issues. Moreover, helping educators learn the different methodologies needed to teach actively in classes and engage the student population. Since then, I have been very much involved in international development work on the side of education. It is a variety of issues like helping children who have HIV and AIDS, resist stigmatization in South Africa and helping to train teachers in Liberia and also to help people in Ethiopia who maybe were 16 years old in first grade, trying to help them to get an education but give them tools that they need as older learners. And so, the way I come at my research is by looking at how quality and critical thinking are accessed at the University of Liberia. I am looking at how these things help to make not only an educated student but someone who can contribute to society can critically think about the things in front of them. To address the challenges that their country or their nation faces. And so, for me, this podcast looks at not just issues in the United States, but also really Africa, how people can use their education to inform themselves and make better choices for the societies in which they live. And hopefully, that can expand to something globally. I am very interested in education in post-conflict countries and fragile states. And I believe that for me, it is important because obviously, there was a problem where these people in these communities were not able to communicate their challenges or their needs. So, through education, the ability to be open-minded, and be aware that there are differences of opinion are things that can be brought together to make a community better and hopefully stronger for the future. Thank you.

Adam Peter Lang (10:56)

Thank you. That's very interesting, what you said there about the dynamics that you're looking at, and Africa and the United States and linking your work. I just to share with the group or the podcast group, that very difficult time, when we were coming online to me, Kamille was giving us information from Washington DC, about what was going on with the elections and the demonstrations that were very powerful for us to hear her story, really her narrative of what was taking place with the Black Lives Matter movement, but also the black vote matters movement, actually, in states of time. So, I found that very illuminating, and very interesting to compare that with things that are going on elsewhere in the world. So thank you very much, Kamille. And finally, we go to Rowena.

Rowena Azada-Palacios (11:45)

Thank you so much, Adam, and hello to everybody listening. So my name is Rowena Azada- Palacios and I am currently based in London, but most of my adult life has actually been in the Philippines. I have been an academic for more than 20 years, mostly in teaching posts in higher education. My main affiliation has been with Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines. Although I have also taught at London Metropolitan University where I have a post currently, as well as University College London. Now, my own research is really about the intersection of Philosophy and Education. I finished my doctoral research last year, and it was a project which looked at citizenship education in a post-colonial context, specifically drawing from the Philippine experience. But as my other colleagues here have indicated, speaking to Adam, Stella, Kamille and other people in our group have really helped me to see how many of the struggles that we face in the Philippines and many of the challenges are not too different from those that are faced in other parts of the world as well. And one of the things that have attracted me to this group and have kept me excited about the work that we have done together is precisely this international comparative element, this sense of learning from each other, recognising the differences in our different contexts, but also seeing how so many of the aspirations that we have when it comes to education are actually quite similar. And I do hope that this podcast can help bring that sense to a wider audience, especially as we bring in not just ourselves, and our own experiences, both in academic research as well as in practice, but also the ideas of researchers and practitioners from around the world.

Adam Peter Lang (13:52)

Thank you, Rowena. That's very helpful. Very good. I think that it's interesting also, just to let the people that listen to podcasts be aware of Rowena's background in terms of her experiences she has talked about through the Philippines but also at UCL and through the IOE but now at London Met University. And so that reaches a very important gathering in our hopefully, more academics, more students, more practitioners, to the group. And I just echo what Rowena has said at the end there about the international dynamic things are different. Of course, they are some things that are similar, not exactly the same. But we can learn a great deal from that. And that's what I think we all individually found. And we hope that that's going to be one of the ambitions of the podcast.

Rowena Azada-Palacios (14:37)

Yeah, if I may quickly add something to that Adam as well. And I think that the international dynamic is not just I mean, definitely, the comparisons that we make with each other's work and perspectives is so crucial to the group, but also the way that speaking to each other helps us to recognise the international nature of a lot of the issues that we face. And we sometimes tend to think that, oh, this is an issue, that's a problem in my country or in my context, but then hearing each other stories helps us to see that the problems themselves are really global problems.

Adam Peter Lang (15:12)

That's right. That's right. And that's very true. And I think we'll be referring to some of these things when we recommend in various books in the future sessions, and what they say about certain things. So, thank you very much, everybody, for that. Now, those people that are listening to the podcast, what we're going to do now is we're not indulgent. But we're just going to tell you a little bit more about our specific areas of research, just for a few minutes. And I might ask a few questions about people how the methodology people have used and feel works and the conceptual framework. So, I thought we might actually stay with Rowena, to begin with, could you just tell us a little bit more about, congratulations on your recent doctorate? Do you want to tell us just a little bit more about what you were looking at what you found, perhaps?

Rowena Azada-Palacios (16:02)

Yes, thank you, I would be happy to add them. My research was a theoretical work. It was philosophical. So, I did not do any empirical fieldwork. Unlike the rest of you in this group, I was looking at the teaching of national identity and the context in which I began was the way that national identity has always been a central part of the Philippine curriculum since its independence from the United States. And so drawing from my own experiences and questions about whether national identity should be taught, whether national identity should be so central, and I suppose responding to the European resistance to nationalism and patriotism. My question then emerged as to whether there is a specifically post-colonial way of thinking about national identity because the value of nationalism and national identity in the post-colonial world is so different from other contexts. In Europe, for example, I've noticed that when you say that you are trying to teach your children, children to be patriotic, or nationalism, it is oftentimes responded to with sometimes a bit of horror, to be honest. And I think it's because of the recent history that 20th-century history of how nationalism went wild and was central to some of the horrors of the Second World War. But in the post-colonial world, nationalism has been central to the fight for self-determination, the fight against colonial powers and imperialism and the fight to be recognised as a country that is equal to other states, the more powerful state. And while I recognise many of the problems that education for nationalism brings, I also wanted to nuance that with a recognition that the issue of parity and the issue of self-determination is a very, very real issue among post-colonial and continuously colonised nations, and the desire to find their own voice, the desire for sovereignty, I think it's legitimate, it's a legitimate one. And so, I tried to reconstruct the way that national identity can be conceived in the educational context of my work.

Adam Peter Lang (18:37)

Well, thank you. We'll come back because we are going to have a broader debate in a moment. But Kamille, do you want to perhaps say a little bit more about the areas you are looking at at the moment and how you are sort of approaching it?

Kamille Beye (18:50)

Okay. So, I'm doing a case study on the University of Liberia, and I'm looking at how the University assesses its quality. So, there's a difference between the actual perception of quality and the reality of how education is delivered. And so what I've chosen to do is look at Harvey and Green’s five types of quality, and they are quality of exception, quality of perfection, fitness for purpose, value and quality as transformational. And so what I'm doing with it, was looking at how the idea of quality intersects with poverty and access. In the case of Liberia, Liberia is modelling itself after the United States. Just a little brief history. Liberia, I don't want to say they founded it, but the people who started the country, as we know as Liberia, were former slaves and freedmen from the United States, who went back to Liberia or who went to Liberia back to Africa and started this society. And because they could not enslave these people, because they were all black, they chose to have a system similar to the United States and created a hierarchy. For those who had American blood or American ties or who were on the high seas, captured, and returned back to Africa, these people were given greater access in society, which means they had access to education, property, management, etc. So fast forward 145 years, these things still remain in society, which caused the civil war in the country to experience two civil wars. And so the idea behind education and who determines what quality looks like is key to how the country can move forward. So currently, at the University of Liberia, education is free. And some people would say, that's a really good thing. But the tuition that fees bring, helps to supply electricity that pays teacher salaries, etc. And so Liberia, now, being that education is free, a whole group of people who never had access to education, have the ability to go to the university. However, they do not have qualified teachers, there is no electricity, and they do not have the supplies that they need to have a quality education experience. So, this idea of who determines the quality becomes key. People are saying that the University of Liberia, is a quality institution. They do not attend the university, their children do not attend the university, and they have had their learning experiences outside of Liberia either in the US, UK, or other parts of the African diaspora. However, what they are saying now, is that what the university is presently is good enough for the indigenous students who have access. And so what this looks like, for quality and critical thinking is we can say is that if you do not have the ability to have proper quality learning environments, that is the purpose of developing a citizen who can contribute to the nation, then the chances are, you are going to stay in a state of fragility, and possibly, later on, maybe go into conflict. And so the whole idea of who has access, and who has the ability to make a change, does not change, even though this new group of people have been given an opportunity "to go to university”. And so in my research, I am looking at these ideas with the hopes of changing policy. So, the goal behind it will be to assesses not only who has this idea of quality, but how do you engage the community? And how do you engage those who are going to be attending university, and what they see as quality, but also looking at the wider world, the world is technologically advanced, and you do not have internet access, and you are not preparing the students for the 21st century? So, therefore, they are not going to be able to contribute to society. And so we want to be able to engage young people and even engage academics at the university and see how fast the world is changing and how they are not keeping up. This whole idea of having quality and then access will keep exacerbating itself if there is not some kind of conversation and some realistic look at what needs to be changed with the university system to make sure that there really is this idea of quality and access for all.

Adam Peter Lang (23:18)

Thank you. And finally, before, as I say we open up, Stella, you just want to tell us a little bit more about your research and congratulations as well to you because you have just recently received your PhD. Would you just tell us a little bit more about your work?

Stella Micheong Cheong (23:34)

Thank you, Adam, Kamille and Rowena. Before diving into the details of my research, I would like to share my personal story. Well, as a civil society volunteer, I met some North Korean migrants in South Korea. Before meeting them, I did not know about the reality of the division system on the Korean peninsula even though I was born and grew up in this unfortunate situation. But after encountering the North Korean migrants, especially the young North Korean migrants, I realised the reality and this got me thinking about unification and unification education, which is promoted by the South Korean government. I am not sure you guys know about unification education. I think Korea is the only country to establish a very unique education system. And also we have the ministry of unification to sort out this current issue. So yeah, that's why I decided to conduct this research. And then I employed auto/biographical narrative inquiry to capture this unique migrant’s life story, life trajectory from North Korea and China and the third countries and South Korea, and lastly, the United Kingdom. My research aims to theorise peacebuilding citizenship education, theoretically, peace education would seem to be an inherently valuable or worthwhile undertaking. However, you know, everyone whose work was somehow associated with this field seems to have a more or less vague idea about what they taught the peace education was, and how it could be taught at higher education, as well as schools. But if we would like to achieve the goal of peace, we should be able to clearly answer the question of what is this that is being proposed and done, how it is done, by whom and for what is proposed. So as a human rights educator with a practical and a critical perspective on peace education, I argue that a more practical and critical approach is needed to what pedagogical models and tailored instructional strategies should be presented in order to achieve the goal of peace education, beyond the simply using the two concepts of peace and education in a single term peace education. Such a value-oriented education, for me, borrowing the Columbian influencer, Santiago Rivas, he tells this kind of value-oriented education is like an elite smokescreen for covering up profound social inequality. I do agree with his argument. So, for example, the unification education in South Korea just looks like value-oriented education. But yeah, this type of education is also valuable and meaningful at the moment in South Korea to enhance citizens’ mindset of peace and become peaceful citizens. But it is not enough to change society or transform the society. In the Korean context, the unification should be associated with transformation to overcome the division habitus what I call the conflict-attuned civic identities. Because of the division, there is a critical issue regarding the civic identity division. So, my research focuses on how citizenship education contributes to nurturing or cultivating the individual citizens’ capacity for peacebuilding. And then, drawing from the unique migrant life story throughout transnational migration and adaptation experience, I have devised the peacebuilding capacity creation framework. And then, the data reveal how they shaped their civic identities throughout transnational migration, the ways they belong and the conflicts they felt with belonging in new circumstances, and how they cultivate a new capacity for peacebuilding. Based on those empirical data, I have devised the pedagogical approach, the so-called peacebuilding citizenship education. This is my doctoral research. Thank you so much.

Adam Peter Lang (29:09)

Thank you, Stella. Thank you, everybody. Obviously, for the podcast. We have got a rich vein of research we've been talking about there and also very successful because, as I say, people have been successful in their research, but it's been influential. And just one thing I pick up, I just want to we could broaden out this whole idea of telling stories, you mentioned the sort of autobiographical reflectivity there. So it's been touched on by Kamilla and Rowena, I'm not an expert on critical race theory at all. But one of the things I thought was very powerful about that is it saying it is telling stories, stories that have not been told before. And not only do you tell the stories, but you also listen to them, you learn from them, and you document them. I think all of you are talking about it in different ways doing now, what do you think about that way, sort of autobiographical approach and reflexivity into our research? Should Does anybody want to comment on that? Because that's the sort of thing that runs through a bit of a common theme, isn't it to do with our work or not?

Stella Micheong Cheong (30:23)

Yes, I am happy to talk because I adapted this methodology to my research. So, I am familiar with this methodology. Honestly, before conducting my doctoral research, I have never ever heard of it, but after meeting the North Korean migrants and hearing their life stories, they were just fascinating because I have never heard about these terrible stories in their past lives in North Korea and their transnational migration stories. Before undertaking the study, my former colleagues recommended me. ‘Stella, you'd better use secondary data because a lot of North Korean migrants, no, not a lot of, some of the migrants have already published their memoirs in the West’. But after reading some of the memoirs written by some North Korean migrants, I realised that there are two problems. I would say this is a problem, the one thing is that there is a typical format. For example, the conflict or terrible life in North Korea and they met missionaries, and then, those missionaries they met saved their lives and they went to, fled to a democratic society like America, the US, the UK or other European countries and they finally, eventually, live happily ever after. So as an educator and a researcher, it was not convincing data. See what I mean? So, I thought I needed to collect the real story from my participants. So, I studied what is this methodology, auto/biographical narrative inquiry and also my research focuses more on the conflict-affected context. Since the conflicts stem from the emotive charge of the social structure and antagonistic reinterpretations of collective memories and narratives, especially, the qualitative approach may present an in-depth analysis of individuals and collective narratives. So, I am keen on the individual story, and at the same time, the collective stories, the narratives. And so, I hypothesised the North Korean migrants can tell their own stories and recall their autobiographical memories and in doing so, they narrate who they are, what they can do, or what role they might have to transform society in a future unified Korea.

Adam Peter Lang (33:31)

That’s great. I mean I just pick up on that last bit in the way of who they are. Kamille and Rowena, do you have any thoughts on what we have just been talking about or adding to this?

Kamille Beye (36:32)

I was thinking in terms not necessarily having the autobiographical nature, but just the idea of telling a story about a marginalized group who is not known to the wider world and the whole idea of our doctoral research, any doctoral research is, why is it important and what does it contribute to the overarching body of knowledge, and so I think about in the terms of our collective work. We are giving voice to issues that maybe have not been seen in the way that we are presenting them so that idea of Rowena’s case. Looking at this identity, you know how one form does identity in a post-colonial setting and some people don't even realise that the United States colonised the Philippines. And so, to think that there is an issue with identity is beyond their comprehension.

In the case of Liberia, most people in the United States at least don't know about Liberia. They do not understand there was a connection when I went to Ghana and see it in 2001. There were Liberian refugees in Ghana at a camp. I knew nothing about that. I was like ‘okay they are there’, I was so excited to be there not realizing the atrocities and for those happening right next door and then to come back to it almost 20 years later. And to see, what was done, what was not done and how it all affects the overall outcome of the country. It humbles me in one sense, that makes me ashamed in another that I was so ignorant of the fact that these things have been going on in the world, and I would say the same thing about South Korea unless you are really understanding of the Peninsula if you are I cannot speak for the UK, but I can say for the US if you are not interested in that part of the world, but I think they do not make it to the front page news here, and so the idea behind our research is looking at these different perspectives of these very important events that are not brought to the forefront of the mainstream agenda, but they are all very relevant to how we move in the world, and so I think it's important in that sense.

Adam Peter Lang (38:45)

Thank you resonates particularly with me, I hope, with the group that this idea of giving voice to different groups and different people individually and collectively. Rowena, how do you come to this is interesting, the interrelationship between the group being Filipino American, British, Korean? it's very interesting. Rowena, do you have any sort of reflections on what we have been talking about?

Rowena Azada-Palacios (39:07)

Yes, absolutely when you pose that question, Adam. On the one hand, I was thinking to myself that storytelling is not a methodology and the strict sense of the word in my research but it is a question that is I think at the heart of my research, whose story is not told. And, exactly as Kamille was saying earlier when I was thinking about the issue of national identity. And I was reading the literature for my doctoral work, I really did feel like the postcolonial story was told across the world when it came to discussions of nationalism of national identity. And just how central the role of developing a sense of nationhood was in the aspiration for sovereignty and the aspiration for independence. And so on that is the overarching level of what my research has tried to do. It has always been an attempt to bring to the fore a story that is less heard in the greater scheme of knowledge construction. But in my specific findings as well, one of the things that I argue in my thesis and my doctoral thesis is that national identity is a continual task of creation so the way that I envision national identity to be taught is not as a fixed identity but it's something that children themselves participate and continue to create and that itself is also about allowing stories to be told, allowing children from all across the country, given the diversity of the country, given the diversity of cultures across the country to define for themselves and to imagine for themselves what it means to be part of the nation. And I do hope that I carry this principle, I suppose into my future research as well, and hopefully, this trickles down into practice so that hopefully teachers, education practitioners and policymakers as well, can see those children themselves can be a source of imagining what it means to be a nation.

Adam Peter Lang (41:33)

Thank you for that. And for those practitioners out there, listening to these teachers, as we said, please contribute because we are very interested to hear what your take is on this. I mean I will be quite broken just for two minutes and just the debate is taking place or has taken place in this country about in the UK, about the English curriculum and history curriculum and basically what is in it, and what is not in it and the push back where some people have challenged that is amazing what they're going on at the moment and I mean that is the very stuff with what teachers have to do isn't it or not. How disruptive or can you be in that respect, so we want to talk about these issues as well, and we want to frame it in a sort of theoretical perspective but thank you very much everybody for those contributions. Is there anybody else who wants to say anything before we kind of come to the end of our first podcast session? anything that they feel as though we have not touched on?

Kamille Beye (42:44)

I want to add something to this whole idea about history and curriculum. We are going to the same thing here in the US, the idea in many states is that we do not want White children to feel uncomfortable in class, and so the idea of teaching about slavery or the long trail of tears is where large groups of Indian or indigenous peoples were moved onto reservations, these things are ‘now making white children way too often uncomfortable’. And so, they do not want to teach these things in class and so there is also some pushback here about the same types of issues about what portions of history are most relevant or important to whom and for why, and so I think this idea of just being a citizen and helping someone to inform their own identity about how they want to move in the world is very important, it connects to the current day.

Adam Peter Lang (43:36)

Interesting point. anybody else because I am just conscious of the time scale that we are on at the moment, but we are hoping there's going to be those reports coming out from the wider group out there. Before our next podcast but if I can just thank everybody for their contributions I am going to pass it back now to Stella. Thank you very much to everybody and we look forward to seeing your comments and having you on board again for our next episode.

Stella Mi-Cheong Cheong (44:10)

Thank you, Adam. Thank you for listening to conversations4citizenship. We hope you enjoy this episode. Be sure to subscribe to the #conversations4citizenship and a transcript of today's conversation can be found at www.conversations4citizenship.com. We will be back next month, bringing a fascinating conversation on human rights education with Professor, Hugh Starkey. This episode of conversations4citizenship was produced by me, Adam Lang, Kamille Beye, and Rowena Palacios, recorded and sound mixed by Dain Jeong. Stay safe and we stand by Ukraine.

EPISODE SUMMARY

In this episode, the four hosts talk about why we developed the #conversations4citizenship podcast, and the aims we are pursuing through the podcast. We also talk about our journeys as researchers and educators in the field of citizenship and human rights education.

EPISODE NOTES

We are thrilled to share the first episode of the Conversations4Citizenship podcast with you.

In the research into digital storytelling, Poletti (2020:12) asserted, 'scholars have ignored the many complex ways that humans attempt to make their lives meaningful and legible to others'. Reflecting on this, we aim to explore new ways of speaking and sharing stories with people across the world, focused on our shared interest and expertise, which is citizenship and human rights education. Every month, we hope to explore burning educational topics through real conversations with practitioners and researchers who are knowledgeable about the field. Through these informal chats (over tea!), we hope to learn from our guests and each other.

The Conversations4Citizenship podcast team is made up of four educator-researchers: Adam, Kamille, Rowena, and Stella. Each episode, we hope to invite guests from across the world who can share their unique perspectives on issues related to citizenship and human rights education. Together we hope to explore past conceptions of citizenship and human rights, how present understandings impact us now, and what it should look like in the future. For each episode, we also supply a list of suggested readings (see below for this episode's list). For this first episode, however, we start by introducing ourselves and our own journeys as citizenship education researchers.

We hope you enjoy listening to this podcast! Please subscribe through Apple, Google, Spotify or Amazon Music! You can also follow @c4c_ed on Twitter and let us know how we're doing, or whether you have any suggestions for future topics; we look forward to hearing your feedback and your stories. If you would like explore the possibility of participating in our podcast, do not hesitate to reach out through the online participation form or email us at conversations4citizenship@gmail.com

List of further readings

Azada-Palacios, R. A. (2021). Hybridity and national identity in post-colonial schools. Educational Philosophy and Theory. DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2021.1920393
Cheong, Mi-cheong. (2022) Imagining Peacebuilding Citizenship Education: An investigation of the experience of North Korean migrants as ‘bridge citizens’. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Cheong, S. M.-C., Palacios, R., Beye, K., Lang, A., Saud, N. S., & Tong, Y. (2021). Collective autobiographical reflexivity on active and compassionate citizenship in the COVID-19 crisis. Perspectives in Education, 39(1), 304-322. https://doi.org/10.18820/2519593X/pie.v39.i1.19.
Harvey, L., & Green, D. (1993). Defining quality. Assessment & evaluation in higher education, 18(1), 9-34.
Poletti, A. (2020). Stories of the self: Life writing after the book (Vol. 27). NYU Press.
Rivas, S. (2018). Acaba Colombia. Motivos para apagar e irnos. Bogotá: Planeta.
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