Format and working mode
The international summer seminars at Roskilde University are part of a decade-long tradition of interactive doctoral training. For many students this experience has had significant influence on their continued work. You can read more about this particular format here:
Zukas, M. and Andersen, Lundgaard L (2011) Taking a break: Doctoral summer schools as transformative pedagogies. In Reshaping Doctoral Programs: Changing Programs and Pedagogies. (Eds) Alison Lee & Susan Danby. Routledge
The summer seminar will consist of two types of activities – workshops and lectures. Lectures will present a variety of critical approaches: some discussing ways of theorizing learning; others laying the framework for empirical studies or experimental intervention in one of the many arenas where learning takes place. These include formal education and training as well as learning in everyday life where people engage and learn: workplaces, evening classes, local communities, cultural and political activities, family life. Examples will be drawn from the research of the seminar leaders.
As a first step, participants will be invited to present their own research projects and preliminary results in intensive workshops in which all participants present a piece of their own work with fellow students as discussants and a supervising professor as convener. Depending on the stage of each students’ study, this might be a project description, a paper in progress, a case analysis or a methodological reflection. All students will have the opportunity to present, to be a discussant and to get detailed feedback from supervisors and their peers. The seminar is inclusive in relation to topics: all projects dealing with learning or contexts of learning can be accommodated. This approach is the most important part of the summer seminar. Previous participants have thrived in this format and appreciated the support given to further their PhD projects.
A number of traditional keynote lectures will be held in parallel with the workshops. These will offer exemplary cases which illustrate methodological issues related to the development of a critical research perspective on lifelong learning and its societal implications. The main theme of the Seminar will be addressed in a number of subthemes and topics. Topics have been selected to give a broad presentation of research themes. Key notes will mainly be delivered by professors who are also participating in the workshops, and who will present their own ongoing research orientation.