Economic and Social Research Council Festival of Social Science
Tue, 05 Nov 2013 16:10:00 GMT
The University of Huddersfield will host a day-long event on Friday 8 November 2013, aimed at young people in secondary schools and further education (FE) colleges across West Yorkshire as part of the Economic and Social Research Council’s week-long ‘Festival of Social Science’. The event, ‘Empowering Youth in the 21st century’, will seek to empower young people in becoming more effective citizens by establishing dynamic participatory relationships with the University’s staff and students. It will encourage the development of social, economic, cultural and political citizenship through the hosting of project-based workshops designed to enhance citizenship education programmes in local schools and FE colleges.
Research indicates that young people are often overlooked by policy-makers, politicians, employers and other influential figures within locales. This event will enhance the youth voice in schools and communities through the development of effective modes of youth citizenship, which is widely-recognised to counter prevailing attitudes towards young people, both in terms of recognition and empowerment.
This event builds directly on a previous Economic and Social Research Council funded event hosted at the University in 2012, when social science students, staff and local stakeholders held a successful ‘Young People in Society: Promoting Youth Citizenship’ conference. Young people will develop projects to enhance youth citizenship through engagement with social science and business researchers and students from the University and local stakeholders including Kirklees Council and Volunteering Kirklees. Keynote addresses will be provided by Dr Pete Woodcock, who will reveal what The Simpsons can tell us about democracy and students from the Business School, who will discuss local enterprise projects. Throughout the event young people will be assisted in the development of projects inspired by contemporary issues directly affecting them within citizenship and other social science lessons in participating schools and colleges.
