SCEAA Conference 2025 Reflection

Held in partnership with James Cook University (JCU) in Townsville, our mid-year conference was a vibrant gathering of over 40 school students, educators, teachers, researchers, and advocates from across Australia. In response to 2024 feedback, we included dedicated networking sessions, which turned out to be a real highlight. Thank you to everyone for showing up so generously and making the space meaningful. 

Thank you to our partners and collaborators:

• Our partnership with colleagues at JCU Townsville, who provided our venue and wonderful local support in the coordination of our conference 
  
• Students and teachers from Enkindle Village School, the independent democratic school on campus at JCU Townsville, which provides students a voice and choice in their learning journey. Enkindle focuses on inspiring their community of learners to grow with curiosity and joy. 
  
• Professor Stewart Riddle, whose keynote and provocations on social justice and schooling continue to resonate. He shared his views on democratisation of schooling systems, increasing access and equity in education and how schooling can respond to critical social issues in complex contemporary times. 
  
• Professor Phillippa Collin, whose What Matters to Young People report challenges us to listen more deeply and act more meaningfully to respond to what young people believe, say and do.  In her provocation she drew on Isin’s work, ‘Being political: genealogies of citizenship. University of Minnesota Press, 2002; Theorizing acts of citizenship. In: Isin E, Nielsen G (eds), Acts of citizenship. Palgrave Macmillan, London, pp 15–43, 2009. She proposes that shifting the focus from children’s and young people’s “citizenship status” to their “acts of citizenship” can unsettle the dominant assumptions about what counts as citizenship, how it comes to be, and with what consequences.