ACS Summer Institute organizers

Culture & Education research group

The ACS Summer Institute is organized by the research group Culture & Education (C&E) that is part of the Department of Educational Studies of Ghent University . The research group works within Educational Sciences, Social Work and Teacher Education and focuses its research and teaching on language and communication, culture, rhetoric, multiliteracies and media. C&E takes its main perspective for theory and research from interdisciplinary fields of scholarship such as cultural studies, rhetorical studies and critical pedagogy. The focus is on qualitative research: discourse analysis, narratology, media studies, ethnographic research, rhetorical criticism.

The research group has been involved in various research projects focusing on new perspectives on education, literacy and culture. For the directorate within the European Union (DG XIII), C&E wrote a report focusing on the introduction of digital media in teacher training. For the Dutch Language Union (Nederlandse Taalunie), C&E wrote a book on the culture of reading focusing on new trends in reading cultures. Furthermore, C&E was involved in different research projects on youth and gaming. The research group is currently part of a large scale research project on "user empowerment in a social media culture".

Members of the group have been involved in different national and international conferences. The research group organized a conference on culture, media and education (Ghent, February 2010) and a conference on the future of education (Ghent, March 2010). The group has organized the international AILA Literacy conference Multiliteracies and the Contact Zone in 2003.