X Close

IOE Student Blog

Home

A blog on life at IOE and education affairs written for students by students.

Menu

When a girl makes a choice…

By IOE Blog Editor, on 27 July 2023

The opening page of the gamebook. The title reads 'A girl's life journey in one day'. A set of multicoloured stairs rise towards the top of the image. A young girl runs up them. Image permission: Wendy Wen, Yifan Chen, Yiwei Lu and Yiping Tang

The title page of the gamebook. Image permission: Wendy Wen, Yifan Chen, Yiwei Lu and Yiping Tang.

By Wendy Wen, Yifan Chen, Yiwei Lu and Yiping Tang, Education Studies BA

*From the 2024/2025 academic year onwards, the Education Studies BA has been renamed the Education, Society and Culture BA.


As part of our assessment in one second-year Education Studies BA module (EDPS0253: Children in Society: Anthropological, Historical and Sociological Perspectives), we created a gamebook. We were given the opportunity to produce engaging materials to show children an underrepresented aspect of their lives.

In the module, we learnt to challenge assumptions about childhood based on our own historically-situated and culturally-constituted ideologies, and we truly got to see how childhoods are wrongly universalised – not from a bird’s eye view – but from a perspective that constructs childhood ‘from below’. Such spirit inspired us to make this gamebook, which explores underrepresented gendered aspects of children’s lives.

Have you ever noticed that girls are often restrictedly described as ‘quiet’ and ‘obedient’, or have you ever had a strange feeling when someone says, ‘girls are just like that’? Do you recall from childhood that your parents made decisions for you without consultation beforehand? Our gamebook about a girl’s experience may lead you to think about these questions and the essence of a girl’s decision.

(more…)

Learning about “Community Music”

By IOE Digital, on 20 December 2022

A woman plays flut in the casual setting with a conductor in the centre.

Image by Jason Ilagan for IOE

By Amy Ellis, Music Education MA

The Music Education MA offers a varied view of music education, splitting two of its modules ‘The Disciplines of Music Education’, into three strands, one of which is Sociology. Over the course of term one we have covered many varying topics, including multiculturalism and gender, and a lecture about ‘Community Music’ led by guest lecturer Tim Palmer.

Tim Palmer is Head of Education at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, with 25 years’ experience as an orchestral musician, a community musician, and in outreach work. His passion for community music is inspiring, and Tim describes music education as a tool for ‘communal change.’

(more…)