CERRL research seminar (July 2023)

CERRL is delighted to be welcoming Professor Graham McDonough, a leading Canadian researcher with expertise in Catholic education, to lead a seminar.

Graham McDonough’s work, Towards A Theory of Dissent in Catholic Education, (2012, McGill-Queens UP) has been an influential text for many researchers in the field of Catholic Education Studies.

The seminar will be in three parts, with the first being an open forum to engage and exchange with Graham and some of his research.

The second part will be a presentation titled ‘Contexts and Controversies in Canadian Catholic Schools’. This talk will explore why British (and other) Catholic Educators should care about what is happening in Canadian Catholic schools. Through sharing stories of how Catholic schools were established in Canada, and the problems they currently encounter, Graham will argue that they present experiences that are both familiar and strange to a UK audience. Knowing the familiar promotes empathy as academics and professionals in both places work together on common topics, while knowing the strange enables seeing past local or regional ideologies to witness a new array of choices.

This argument proceeds in two parts. The first relates a political history of the Canadian Catholic minority’s persistence within a majority non-Catholic or secular culture, and how this set precedents for Canada as an inclusive nation state, and Canadian Catholic schools as inclusive institutions. The second reveals sociological and theological portraits of contemporary social issues within the Canadian Catholic experience. Here, Graham will contend that because the descriptive realities of Catholic life often collide with the prevailing normative expressions and interpretations of Catholic faith, the ways Catholic schools engage or avoid these realities has significant consequences for students’ participation both in the Church and society at large. By offering British Catholic educators “a quarter turn to the West” to observe familiar concerns in a strange context, Graham contends that they might empathise with common concerns, and augment the array of choices available to consider when encountering them.

The final section of the seminar will be a discussion of the issues raised and an exploration of what Canadian and UK Catholic Education Studies can learn from Each other.

This event is free, however, booking your place is essential.