Conference Sessions

The Conference sessions are listed below in alphabetical order.  Use the search box above to find sessions by keyword. Additional events are being added and session information is subject to change.

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(EDU7a) Creating Care and Community in the Neoliberal University I: Classrooms and Pedagogy

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Scholars have observed the increasing neoliberalization of higher education, wherein education is transformed into a commodity or service that is provided by faculty and consumed by students (Mohanty 2003). In this climate, the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the pursuit of knowledge and the well-being of students and faculty, often putting students and faculty into adversarial positions. These effects are particularly acute for those already marginalized in academia, such as racialized, working class, first generation, queer and trans, and Indigenous members of the university community. At the same time, universities are sites of resistance enacted by students, faculty, and staff. This session features papers that investigate how instructors are using innovative pedagogy to create community and care, and how students respond to these new ways of teaching and learning. These papers explore the possibilities opened up by giving students greater autonomy over course content, assignments, and evaluation, and the challenges students and instructors face when implementing new practices in the context of the neoliberal university. Other papers examine the results of educational experiments that bring the world outside the university into closer dialogue with the classroom. Together, these papers draw attention to ways instructors and students are working to challenge isolation and create communities of solidarity and care.

Organizers: Yukiko Tanaka, University of Toronto Scarborough, Bahar Hashemi, University of Toronto Scarborough

(EDU7b) Creating Care and Community in the Neoliberal University II: Belonging and Resistance

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Scholars have observed the increasing neoliberalization of higher education, wherein education is transformed into a commodity or service that is provided by faculty and consumed by students (Mohanty 2003). In this climate, the pursuit of profit takes precedence over the pursuit of knowledge and the well-being of students and faculty, often putting students and faculty into adversarial positions. These effects are particularly acute for those already marginalized in academia, such as racialized, working class, first generation, queer and trans, and Indigenous members of the university community. At the same time, universities are sites of resistance enacted by students, faculty, and staff. This session features papers exploring how students and faculty navigate belonging, care, and community, especially for members of equity-seeking groups who have historically been excluded from full membership in universities. The papers explore the processes through which the “ideal worker” or “ideal student” is constructed, and how that idealized figure is racialized, gendered, and/or classed. Further, these papers address the structural conditions under which the labour of creating community and care occurs, and which members of the university community carry unequal burdens of care labour. Finally, the papers address how students and faculty are challenging the neoliberalization of the university by creating spaces of community, joy, and resistance.

Organizers: Yukiko Tanaka, University of Toronto Scarborough, Bahar Hashemi, University of Toronto Scarborough

(EDU8) Navigating Boundaries: Mobilities and Social Justice in Contemporary Education

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The proposed session delves into the nuanced relationship between mobility and education, exploring its implications for social (in)justice. In the late modern era, mobility has become a fundamental requirement in our lives, demanded by society on multiple fronts (Canzler, Kaufmann & Kesselring 2008). In the context of migration, mobility stands as a constitutive element of our post-migrant society and in the educational field, mobility is traditionally perceived as a catalyst for transformation and an increase in knowledge and competences (Bernhard 2023). However, mobility and the accompanying processes of learning are never ‘neutral’ but always intertwined with societal power relations, forms of subjectification, and social inequality. The ways in which individuals respond to the imperative of mobility, the access they have to different forms of mobility, and the complex relation between mobility and educational success or failure all echo the broader questions of social justice. With our session, we want to unravel the meanings of mobility for social justice, shifting the focus to both physical movement and social mobility. In order to do so, we aim at bringing together scholars that investigate different forms of mobility, their effects and their relation to social (in)equality. We then focus on the following questions: What insights into societal norms and its transformations does the study of mobility yield? Which interdisciplinary theoretical and methodological approaches are essential for comprehending mobility and its relation to education? How do mobility experiences shape the educational paths of young people? What role do mobility experiences play in fostering empathy, reflexivity, and political engagement and awareness? To what extent is mobility linked to inclusion and exclusion in education? How is access to mobility regulated, and what factors facilitate or impede it? What specific resources (e.g. forms of capital) are imparted through mobility experiences, and what prerequisites are necessary?

Organizers: Alessandra Polidori, Université de Neuchâtel, Flora Petrik, University of Tübingen

(ENV1a) Environmental Sociology I

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This session invites papers applying sociological perspectives to the study of environmental issues, and environmental sociological analyses of societal issues. In the midst of a global social movement cohering around the climate crisis, political and socio-economic debates over extractive industries, and related policy discussions, there exists opportunities for sociologists to contribute to understandings of the environment as a social construct, a political entity, a physical place/space, a component of social structure, and more. As such, this session welcomes theoretical or empirical/substantive papers using any methodology, from any country. Authors are specifically encouraged to reflect on the broader Congress 2024 theme, Challenging Hate: Sustaining Shared Futures, “where ‘sustainability’ transcends even the immense challenges posed by climate change, urging recognition of the interconnectedness of human existence and global action on the overlapping social, economic, environmental, and technological issues that threaten our future.”

Organizer: Ken Caine, University of Alberta

(ENV1b) Environmental Sociology II

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This session invites papers applying sociological perspectives to the study of environmental issues, and environmental sociological analyses of societal issues. In the midst of a global social movement cohering around the climate crisis, political and socio-economic debates over extractive industries, and related policy discussions, there exists opportunities for sociologists to contribute to understandings of the environment as a social construct, a political entity, a physical place/space, a component of social structure, and more. As such, this session welcomes theoretical or empirical/substantive papers using any methodology, from any country. Authors are specifically encouraged to reflect on the broader Congress 2024 theme, Challenging Hate: Sustaining Shared Futures, “where ‘sustainability’ transcends even the immense challenges posed by climate change, urging recognition of the interconnectedness of human existence and global action on the overlapping social, economic, environmental, and technological issues that threaten our future.”

Organizer: Ken Caine, University of Alberta