This free one day inter-disciplinary event brought together stakeholders and researchers interested in developing educational contexts to better meet the challenges posed by rising rates of child poverty in England. It aimed to create a space to think together about key questions such as:

• How does poverty shape educational experiences across contexts in England today?
• What can be done by whom to anticipate need and maximise opportunity?

The day was chaired by CTLR Deputy Director Tamsin Hinton-Smith and included a series of presentations (see below) and two parallel workshops led by CTLR members. Together these afforded rich insights into poverty across the life course. You can find out more about participants’ experiences of the event and their thoughts on these critical issues in our Event Brief.

PROGRAMME

Presentations

TALK 1

Invisible Rules: Social mobility, low income and the role of further and higher education
Professor Simon Pemberton (Department of Social Policy, University of Birmingham) began the day with a presentation that introduced research that traced the experiences of young people from low income backgrounds through Further and Higher Education and into the labour market.

TALK 2

Discourses and Narratives of Poverty in Early Childhood
Dr Sandra Lyndon (Department of Childhood, Social Work and Social Care, University of Chichester) drew on research conducted in two early years settings to explore how dominant political and media discourses inform practitioners’ narratives of poverty in early childhood.

TALK 3

Typologies of Family Poverty: Differences and implications
Dr Matt Barnes (Department of Sociology, City University of London) demonstrated how findings from a large-scale survey conducted in Scotland had enabled the identification of four typologies of family poverty.

TALK 4

Tackling Financial Barriers to Learning and Poverty Stigma in Schools
Kate Anstey (Child Poverty Action Group, CPAG) introduced CPAG’s Cost of the School Day project. She facilitated a discussion of how children, young people, families and school staff can work together to identify and address points throughout the school day where costs place pressure on family budgets.

Workshops

PARALLEL SESSION 1

“Keeping the Children and Community in Mind’’: Attending to discourses of poverty in the maintained nursery school
Dr Carla Solvason (University of Winchester) and Dr Rebecca Webb (University of Sussex) drew on data from their TACTYC funded research project on the role of the Maintained Nursery School in leading sector improvements in Early Years Education to facilitate a discussion that linked ideas of poverty to welfarist, social mobility and pragamatist discourses.

PARALLEL SESSION 2

Contextualising Disadvantage Policies
Dr Louise Gazeley (University of Sussex) drew on research conducted in four schools with sixth forms to highlight the importance of recognising not only that there are children in poverty in all schools but also the challenge of ensuring that they are targeted for widening participation interventions.