Lecture to examine effect of social inequality in high school on the formation of students’ identities

Lecture to examine effect of social inequality in high school on the formation of students’ identitiesJanuary 24, 2007Patrick Farrellpmfarrel@syr.edu

Lyn Yates, Foundation Professor of Curriculum and associate dean of research and research training in the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, will present “Making Modern Lives: Schools, Values, Inequalities and Social Change” on Thursday, Jan. 25, at 4 p.m. in the Peter Graham Scholarly Commons, Room 114 of E.S. Bird Library. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Yates will discuss a qualitative longitudinal study of young people from ages 12-18 at four schools in Australia. The study examines the high school years as a formative time when students’ day-to-day experience of social patterns of inequality influences their understanding of the world.

Yates’ project followed young people from different backgrounds at the same school, as well as young people from similar backgrounds at different schools, focusing on how identities are formed and re-formed, and patterns of inequalities created and re-created in the context of school. By studying identities in formation over the six high school years, the project shows the complexities of gender, race, ethnicity and class as lived and imagined.

Yates is a past president of the Australian Association for Research in Education and a past member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts, and has held visiting fellowships in New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The lecture is sponsored by Cultural Foundations of Education and the School of Education.

For additional information, contact Sari Knopp Biklen, Laura and Douglas Meredith Professor and chair of Cultural Foundations of Education, at (315) 443-9075 or skbiklen@syr.edu.