This webinar featured leading-edge research investigating relationships between place and educational disadvantage, both in the Glasgow City Region and in cities in the Global South.

This webinar was part of a series of events coordinated by the University of Glasgow’s School of Education celebrating social justice research in education.

Missed the event? Click on the image below to watch a recording.

Key points from presentations

Centre for Sustainable, Healthy, Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods

• In her role of as Education lead and Co-I, Professor Michele Schweisfurth presented the work of the Centre for Sustainable, Healthy, Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (SHLC), a large-scale funded by UKRI within the Global Challenges Research Fund. She highlighted its twin functions of capacity strengthening and undertaking inter-disciplinary research working with researchers in seven global south countries and in 14 cities. She explained why interdisciplinary is important in the studies of urban sustainability and provided a number of examples of specific issues and research questions pertaining to education in this context. (Presentation: SHLC)

Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Asia and Africa (SUEUAA)

• Dr Muir Houston, Co-I within the British Academy funded GCRF project, Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Asia and Africa (SUEUAA) presented an account of the work of that project as it related to cities and infrastructure. He focused on the different ways in which universities engaged with their urban communities, and how they contribute to developing sustainable cities in the context of the major social, cultural, environmental and economic challenges facing the global south. He described the various methods used in the study undertaken in six global south countries and focused on the main themes of the project: migration; environment; economy; health; and policy. (Presentation: SUEUAA)

Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland (CNS)

• Dr Alison Drever, CNS Director and Dr Sarah Ward, Research Associate in CNS researchers in Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland spoke to the work of this project funded by the Scottish Government as well as public and private, and which is working in high poverty neighbourhoods to improve outcomes for children and young people. They described the themes and work strands of the project with a particular emphasis on the role of children’s own voices in decision-making. The uniqueness of the CNS model lies in dialogue, the use of creative arts and games, its multi-dimensional approach, its scalability and its focus on a youth-led well-being framework and action plan. They also described the work of CNS in the context of the impact of COVID-19 on families, children and young people in Glasgow, and concluded with a brief account of the impacts of the work. (Presentation: CNS)

Urban Big Data Centre

• Professor Catherine Lido, Associate Director and Dr Phil Mason, Research Fellow in the Urban Big Data Centre funded by the ESRC, spoke about the workstream of the centre that uses big and novel data to meet social challenges related to educational disadvantage and place. Following an overview of the objectives of this strand of work, they outlined this work as it pertained to secondary, vocational and higher education, and to learning cities. They described a particular piece of work, the Integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) Project, and its use of novel methodologies, such as travel diaries, GPS, lifelogging cameras and social media capture. They continued with an example of follow-on work with families in the field of lifewide literacies, and an example of rapid-response work related to COVID-19 undertaken by a PhD student, Barry Black. (Presentation: UBDC)