GA Conference 2017 #16 - Keynote lecture

The second keynote lecture was given by Peter Hopkin: a Professor of Social Geography, Newcastle University, which was in the area of YPG.

He had done a range of research into Young People’s Geographies, hence the connection with Mary's Presidency and curation of the conference theme. I was involved with the Young People's Geographies project while teaching, and took some Year 10 students along, and later ended up running the YPG days towards the end of the project while working for the GA.
I was reminded of this quote from Gill Davidson's evaluation report on the YPG:

"The project can celebrate the fact that teachers are genuinely engaged in effective curriculum making and exploring new and innovative approaches to learning and teaching geography alongside their pupils. They are actively involved in re-conceptualising the relationship between subject knowledge and pedagogy and are taking ownership of their geography curriculum."

Young People, Place and Identity was the theme of Peter Hopkins' talk, and how young people 'identified'.
  • Islamophobia and issues of identity – how people view young people in terms of whether they are disinterested / radicalised.
  • Sometimes young people are marginalised as part of assumptions based on their age
  • One new phrase I picked up on was participatory diagramming, or in other words, using flip chart and post it notes…
Some interesting thoughts on an area that I hadn't really considered before, and some interesting questions on how perspectives may vary depending on whether young people lived in urban or rural areas. 

Was reminded also of the work I'd done at the time when teaching, and which was on my old GeographyPages website. The website is now gone, but you can access it using the WAYBACK MACHINE.

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