PhD students drive forward public engagement with young people
Students from local schools seized their chance to find out more about issues that matter to them at the Southampton Youth Debate organised by postgraduate researchers in Education, Politics and Geography.
The 78 teenagers learned more about research in education, politics and geography and at the University of Southampton and discussed the key issues at a workshop. The day ended with a debate involving Parliamentary candidates Flick Drummond and Rowenna Davis and Solomon Curtis who is the member of the Youth Parliament for Hastings.
Nine PhD students in the faculty talked about their research in a key element of the day. They included Yolanda Liu from Education who is exploring political trust and education, Geography researcher Ellie Tighe who spoke about the garment industry in Bangladesh and Tudor Vilcan in Politics who is probing the UK government’s response to climate change.
Rebecca Ridley, an Education research student focusing on active citizenship, led in organising the event for which most activities were hosted by Southampton Education School. Emily Rainsford was also involved and says she was impressed how the young people made the most of the day: “We had a very lively debate and they really engaged with the questions, feedback from the schools has been very positive. We hope we have inspired many of them to study these subjects at university.”
Schools taking part were Sandown Bay Academy on the Isle of Wight, Crestwood College for Business and Enterprise Southampton, Redbridge Community School Southampton, Oasis Academy Mayfield Southampton, Henry Cort Community College Fareham and St George’s Catholic College Southampton.
Fifteen year old Gemma Turner from Crestwood, who plans to study law after her A levels, says: “It was a great day, everyone had a chance to have their say in the workshop and the panellists spoke very passionately about their subjects.” Outreach officer at Sandown Bay Academy Janet Cass says “We always like to broaden our pupils’ outlook by bringing them to events like this, it was excellent.”
The Southampton Youth Debate is one of a series of outreach events organised by students across the social and human sciences at the University. Funding comes from the Faculty, Outreach at the University and the Economic and Social Research Council’s Doctoral Training Council.