31.033 - Imagination, Imaginaries, and Policy Sociology in Education: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

Imagination has taken on a heightened sense of importance under conditions of globalizing modernity and there has been growing engagement with the imaginative realm in the sociology of education. This symposium will (a) survey and clarify current theories of imagination and imaginaries in the sociology of education and (b) exemplify the purchase of these theories in empirical analyses. A key outcome will be to demonstrate and discuss how theories of imagination can inform research in the sociology of education and critical education policy studies. The session will have a particular emphasis on the role of imagination in current education reform agendas and the possibilities that the imagination affords as a site for working with the most marginalized educational populations.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 4: Social Context of Education Policy, Politics, and Praxis

Chair

• Sam Sellar, The University of Queensland

Papers

• Imaginaries and Imaginations: A Critical Review of the "Imaginative Turn" in Sociology of Education - Fazal A. Rizvi, University of Melbourne; Glenn Clifton Savage, The University of Melbourne

• Imaginary Capital: Youths, Choice, and Stratification in the Neoliberal Imaginary of Education - Ee-Seul Yoon, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

• Young People, the Capacity to Imagine Futures, and Policy Dampeners at Work in Schools - Lew Zipin, Victoria University - Melbourne

• Making Imagination Commensurable: Large-Scale Assessments of Noncognitive Skills - Sam Sellar, The University of Queensland

Discussant

• Aslam Fataar, Stellenbosch University