Girls who learn to serve: a feminist ethnography exploring school-based volunteering

While educational research has identified how volunteering programmes can be co-opted into ideologically driven conceptualisations of citizenship, research has rarely explored the ways volunteering programmes can reproduce systemic and structural inequality. In this study, a feminist lens and qualitative research from a year-long ethnography of six girls participating in a volunteering programme, within a UK ‘disadvantaged’ (DfE, 2015) secondary school, presented an uncomfortable reality. Rather than empowering the girl’s action and agency, coercion into school-based volunteering served to reproduce gendered inequalities that persist in schools (Reay, 2018) and across society.

Inspired by our Church of England foundation, Canterbury Christ Church University’s mission is to pursue excellence in higher education: transforming individuals, creating knowledge, enriching communities and building a sustainable future.

It is only since the Education Act of 1870 that most primary-aged children have attended school, and it was not until the Education Act of 1944 was there an expectation that all children, including those from the working class, get free education up to the age of 16 years. Since that time, the class system has dictated the nature and remit of schools, and many would argue that it continues to do so. Drawing on several disciplines across the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education, we warmly invite you to join us as we explore some of the most pressing issues around class, education and social change in 21st Century. The talks will introduce you to some of the great educationalists of our time, offering a “language of critique” of existing power relations and a “language of possibility” for creating a new society through educational and social practice (Giroux, 1985).

To ensure the safety of our guests and speakers and following government guidance, the lectures will be presented online (using web browsers Chrome, Firefox or Safari - not Internet Explorer or Edge) and booking is required.

Each lecture will last for 50 minutes and there will be the opportunity to ask questions of the speakers, which will be answered during a live question and answer session that will take place at the end of the lecture.

The lectures will be recorded and made available after the live event takes place.

All ticket holders will find access details on their Print at Home tickets. Please book one ticket for each device you will be using, rather than per person, i.e. book one ticket if there will be two of you viewing together.