The Age of Identity:  Who Do Our Kids Think They Are … And How Can We Help Them Belong? - Webinar with Andy Hargreaves and Dennis Shirley

Identity is an essential part of every young person’s development. It should be a priority for all learners and their teachers. However, the reality is that many people are stigmatized and excluded just because of their identities. All educators need to honestly confront this wherever it exists within and beyond our schools.

At the same time, we need to move beyond discussing what to do about these injustices in languages of accusation, indignation, guilt, and shame. A host of research now shows that doing so only provokes a backlash that reinforces the very injustices we should all seek to eliminate.

This explains why identity has become such a tinderbox of politicised emotion. One misstep, many educators worry, might not only lead to a serious dressing down by the powers that be. It could even lead to losing your job and your livelihood.

How can we get past the culture wars and the more volatile aspects of identity politics that divide communities into villains and victims, or aggressors and aggrieved? How can we move beyond treating each other as one-dimensional beings, defined by or demonised solely because of our race, disability, privilege, or gender identity?

In this webinar, drawing on our new book based on 10 years of collaborative research with schools, we will explore the ways in which identities are multiple and complex. All of us are many things, not just one. There’s more to everyone than meets the eye. Race and gender are parts of our identity, but so too are our nationhood, generation, social class, being a twin, or a cancer survivor, for instance. To treat and categorise people in relation to just one aspect of their identify, however important, even where we mean well, is an insult to their dignity as full human beings.

This webinar will get us out of the identity trap that more and more of us feel we are falling into. In practical terms it will introduce participants to:

12 principles to guide discussions about identity controversies.
3 ways to make these discussions more fully end effectively inclusive.
Strategies and exemplars to develop whole schools to support the whole child in the fullness of their identities.

Date/Time: Thursday 7 March 2024 / 4:00-5:00pm (Sydney Time)

Cost: (INC GST)  - all registrations include a copy of ‘The Age of Identity: Who Do Our Kids Think They Are..and How Do We Help Them Belong?’

Individual
ACEL Members - $150 / Non-members - $170

Group
ACEL Members - $135 / Non-members - $155 (Please email [email protected] directly for group registrations for the discount to be applied)

Join ACEL at a discounted 12-month membership fee of $160 (normal price $205) to qualify for ACEL member rates!

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