Youth research events and activities at UCL this October

There are lots of youth-related research events and activities taking place across UCL this October.

9th October – Cross-border childhoods: schooling between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. Room 113, 26 Bedford Way, 1-2pm
Seminar by Johanna Waters (Dept of Geography) as part of the Human Geography Seminar Series.

11^th October – Adolescent Lives: Challenges & Opportunities  

A one-day workshop highlighting the emerging, innovative cross-disciplinary research being conducted as part of UCL’s “Adolescent Lives” initiative. Organised by UCL Grand Challenges. (Free) tickets available here:

17th October – Young people’s digital practices: the question of generativity. UCL Knowledge Lab, 3.30 – 4.30pm
Rebecca Eynon (University of Oxford) will be speaking at UCL Knowledge Lab about youth engagement with digital technologies. Click here for more details.

30st October – Agency and impasses to success amongst higher education students in South Africa. Room 739, 10am – 11.30am
In this lecture, Dr. Swartz will talk about the experience of young Black students in South African universities and highlight some of the particular obstacles that these students face. She will draw on the five-year longitudinal study that culminated in the book Studying while black (Swartz et al, 2018), and show an excerpt from the documentary Ready or Not! Black student experiences of universities in South Africa. Dr Swartz will also discuss the methodological and theoretical frameworks she used for understanding student experiences in the context of inequality, and the challenges of formulating recommendations through such a theoretical framework.
This lecture is part of 3rd year undergraduate module Youth in a Globalising World Module but this session is open to all students.

31st October – Decolonising the curriculum: What can we learn from Global South theories and experiences? Centre for Global Youth seminar, Elvin Hall, 12.30-2pm
In this seminar, Dr. Sharlene Swartz will argue that decolonising the curriculum centres on three key questions: What is taught? How it is taught? And who teaches it? To illustrate what kind of interventions are needed, Dr Swartz will describe a new project in the field of youth studies that illustrates how theory develops, travels, unravels and regenerates. In this way, Dr Swartz will showcase new theoretical ways of understanding Southern youth’s life-worlds (with its starkly differing material realities) and offers ways to avoid essentialising and homogenising Southern experiences.
Dr. Swartz is Executive Director of the Transformative Education research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa, and the author of multiple books, including ‘Studying while black: Race, education and emancipation in South African universities’ (2018).
*** This event is free, but booking is essential. To book you ticket, click here.
Lunch and refreshments will be provided.