Gender and Education Network Report 2025-2026
Andrea Abbas (Outgoing Network Link Convenor).
The key achievements of network 33 were focused around three areas: a journal special edition being accepted for publication in the European Educational Research Journal; the completion of an EERA Network project; and the 2026 conference in Tampere, Finland.
We are particularly proud of the authors who contributed to the journal special connection and the wonderful collection of papers on gender and intersectionality in European educational research. This will be available online on the journal site towards the end of November and it contains the work of authors with very different levels of experience and working in diverse European contexts. The editors (Showumni, Baronović and Abbas) have been enthused by this project for the last few years. The theme of the papers began as a Special Call for Papers back in 2019 and we are pleased to see this project and the articulation of its ambitions articulated through the collection and the introduction and conclusion.
The Network 33 project ‘Empowering racialised women in European academia: Collaboration across borders, was completed in July 2021 and was a joint submission between
Prof. Victoria Showunmi, Dr. Anne-Sophie Godfroy, Dr. Edna Costa, Dr. Marian Blanco-Ruiz. This project explored and expanded issues central to the purpose and mission of NW 33 since the establishment of the network. You can read about this project and its achievements on this blog: https://blog.eera-ecer.de/racialised-women-in-academia/
NW 33 featured 51 individual papers and 2 symposia. Papers were very well attended with our small room regularly being oversubscribed. As with previous years we attracted regulars but also a high proportion of new comers, many of whom would like to be added to the list of members. So our membership continues to expand annually: this year by over 20 members. The standard of papers continues to rise and members express the view that by coming each year and gaining feedback from other members they are improving the standard of their own work. As outgoing link convenor, I concur with this view. There is such a wealth of knowledge in Network 33. There is also a generous attitude towards other scholars work and a genuine willingness to engage with ideas within and outside direct areas of expertise. This year it was nice that our attendees included some of the editorial team from the Gender and Education Journal who generously shared their advice.
The network meeting included the voting in of a new Link Convenor as I (Professor Andrea Abbas, University of Bath, UK) finish my term of office I hand over to Professor Victoria Showunmi, University College London, UK), who was unanimously voted in at the annual general meeting (perhaps link to minutes). At the meeting we also voted on an intended name change to (preliminary title) Gender, Sexualities and Intersectionalities being taken forward through the EERA committee structure. Andrea thanked the members and the network and wider EERA for the opportunity to lead this network and for their help in making it the wonderful learning experience that it has been. The network sends thanks to EERA (especially the Berlin team) for facilitating the network and the conference for another year.
The conference attracted over
- 55 submissions
- 84 Reviews
- 2 Rejected
- 3 Posters
- 2 Symposia (6 Papers)
- 51 Papers
- 14 Withdrawn