Urban and Place Based Learning: webinar summary

The work of the Urban Big Data Centre was among those showcased at the first of five exciting webinars, organised by the School of Education at the University of Glasgow, that focus on Celebrating Social Justice Research in Education.

Professor Mike Osborne chaired this event and Dr Phil Mason and Professor Catherine Lido presented on their research using big and novel data to meet social challenges related to educational disadvantage and place. Following an overview of the objectives of this strand of work, they outlined how this project relates to secondary, vocational and higher education, and learning cities. They also described the Integrated Multimedia City Data (iMCD) project and its use of novel methodologies, such as travel diaries, GPS, lifelogging cameras and social media capture. They continued with an example of follow-on work with families in the field of lifewide literacies and an example of rapid-response work related to COVID-19 undertaken by PhD student Barry Black.

The webinar also featured the following leading-edge research:

• Centre for Sustainable, Healthy, Learning Cities and Neighbourhoods (Professor Michele Schweisfurth), a large-scale UKRI Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project investigating the role of education and health in developing sustainable neighbourhoods in 14 global south cities.
• Strengthening Urban Engagement of Universities in Asia and Africa (Dr Muir Houston), a project within the British Academy’s GCRF Cities and Infrastructure programme considering the urban engagement role of universities in six global south cities
• Children’s Neighbourhoods Scotland (Dr Claire Bynner and Dr Alison Drever), a major initiative in Glasgow funded by the Scottish Government and other agencies bringing together people, resources and organisations in a local area to facilitate collaborative working that betters the lives of the children living there

To read a full report from the event including the panel session, access a full transcription and download the accompanying PowerPoints, please visit Centre for Research & Development in Adult and Lifelong Learning (CR&DALL) website.