The Educational Research Institute Newcastle (ERIN) presents Professor Helen Haste as guest speaker for the ERIN Lecture on Wednesday, 19 June.

Professor Haste is Visiting Professor in Education at Harvard Graduate School of Education, Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Bath, UK, and a Visiting Professor at the University of Exeter, UK.

She has been working for forty years on moral and political development and action through empirical and theoretical work on peace movements, gender politics and political engagement of young people.

She has written extensively on the intersection of cultural discourses and narratives, the negotiation and social construction of meaning, and how the individual's thinking is generated in interaction with these. She has also explored these ideas in relation to science and society.

The topic for the ERIN Lecture is Building the Twenty-First Century Citizen: Civic Education for Civic Engagement.

According to Professor Haste's abstract, "'Political socialization' has for too long narrowly defined civic engagement in terms of partisanship or voting. Research and theory have expanded civic engagement, to include community action, making one's voice heard through less conventional routes and being an aware, alert citizen monitoring political events; increasingly this includes blogging and social media. These expand definitions of the 'good citizen' and a more rounded, effective democracy, also more consistent with social and political change."

"To improve civic education we need to consider the broad range of activities through which young people pursue a public good, and where they often translate strong moral concerns into civic goals. Traditional civics education, focusing on institutional structures or on the historical rhetoric behind national identity, does not address these issues. A 'new civics' agenda recognises the wide range of issues that motivate young people to civic engagement. In particular, young people frequently say they are 'uninterested in politics' yet a majority are active in more broadly defined civic participation."

Professor Haste will illustrate these arguments with data from the UK, China and South Africa.

Admission to the ERIN Lecture is FREE. Refreshments will be served from 12pm.

WHEN: 12pm - 1.30 Wednesday, 19 June

WHERE: W301a Behavioural Sciences Building
                Callaghan Campus - see campus map for directions
                University of Newcastle

There will be a link to room HO173 at Ourimbah from 12.30-1.30pm

RSVP:Monday 17 June to Camilla Fisher Camilla.Fisher@newcastle.edu.au