WELCOME TO NERA CONFERENCE 2025!
March 5-7, 2025 - Helsinki, Finland
You are invited to join us at the NERA2025 conference, which we proudly call “A Pedagogy of Hope: Gratitude, Diversity, and Sustainability in Education”.
Education for a better and just world
The theme Pedagogy of Hope: Gratitude, Diversity, and Sustainability in Education is essential in contemporary educational research and practice for several reasons. First, it reminds us of the meaning of why societies should value education: the hope for a more equal and just world. Second, the theme hopefully also seeks to challenge ready-made answers and assumptions about what education is for. In the Nordic countries, we must defend our values of a democratic, just society and our hope in its continuum; this is why educational research and theorising matter, perhaps more now than ever, because of market economy values gaining more and more grounds.
We think that hope also closely relates to gratitude. By encouraging children, young people, or whoever we educate, to be thankful for what can be justified as good these days – like good regarding equality, fairness and democratic values – then we can say we have hope for their futures and that the next generations are worth the same thing. If succeeding, this can promote a sense of empathy and belonging amongst people living in a world where we are not alone, raising questions about flourishing and vulnerability.
Therefore, we encourage asking what the perspective of hope requires from education. Furthermore, we think/assert that diversity supports empowerment through (the cultivation of) critical thinking. We can, for instance, ask ourselves what we mean by inclusion, equity, social justice, and respect. As we see it, sustainability can be about the interrelation of social, economic, and natural realms. It can also address critical and complex questions about climate change, environmental depletion, or the despair these themes foster within people. Hope is not to give up but to seek change; education is the most promising tool.
We welcome proposals that address the conference theme, but proposals outside the theme with relevance for the Nordic educational research area are also welcome. The conference is held in March 5-7, 2025 at the University of Helsinki’s City Centre Campus, in the heart of Helsinki.