This event is part of the School of Education's Bristol Conversations in Education research seminar series. These seminars are free and open to the public.

Hosted by the Centre for Psychological Approaches for Studying Education (PASE)

Speakers: Professor Tim Jay, Professor of Mathematics Education, Loughborough University and Dr Jo Rose, Associate Professor in Social Psychology of Education, University of Bristol

This seminar will outline two projects on out-of-school mathematics learning: one that focused on children's out-of-school mathematical activity, and one that focused on family activity that involves maths. From this, we will explore three key themes that relate to researching out-of-school learning: the politics of purpose; the methods of engagement; and the ethics of disruption. We will reflect on the way the purpose of education is conceptualised by parents, children, and schools, and how out-of-school activity works in harmony, or in tension, with those concepts. We will consider the research approaches needed to explore out-of-school learning and how those approaches work in harmony, or in tension, with existing expectations from different research stakeholders, including participants, funders, and different disciplines within the academy. We will consider the ethical issues that arise from these conceptual and methodological harmonies and tensions. Our discussion will support a reflection on who we are and who we want to be as researchers, what it means to collaborate within and across disciplines, and how this research has led to a transformation in our thinking.