budding scholar

I wish I could go to this conference, in Berkeley next weekend. It’s hosted by UC Berkeley’s Center for Urban Ethnography, an organization I’d like to learn more about and perhaps get involved with. In the future I hope to have my research use more participant observation and ethnographic approaches. Part of me sometimes wishes I’d become an anthropologist! And the conference is focused on children around the world, and peoples’ up-close research on their experiences of adaptation and survival. A very important topic. Anyone planning to go?

On my way back from Spain I went to a conference on the second generation of immigrants in the United States and Europe. It was excellent! I presented the dissertation proposal idea I’ve been working on, and we had a discussion about it. We all read each others’ papers ahead of time and I got a great sense of the European literature in my areas of interest. It was very small so there were a lot of opportunities for interaction and getting to know each other. Everyone was either a student, or recent graduate, or young professor. I had a strong feeling of meeting and getting to know future colleagues, from the U.S. and Spain, as well as France, Belgium, Germany, England, Austria, Turkey, and Switzerland.

There were two themes of the conference: education and the city. As I read peoples’ work and listened to the keynote talks, I got excited about perhaps doing my dissertation as a comparative study between two cities, maybe even San Francisco-Barcelona. Need to talk with professors and other colleagues and get feedback on the idea, as well as other things I’m considering for my study design.

This year the American Educational Research Association has it’s annual meeting in Chicago in 2 weeks. I went for the first time last year when it was in San Francisco, and found it very valuable to meet and hear people speak who I’d only read in classes or at work.

Next year I hope to go to New York for the conference, and perhaps even present research. It’s earlier than usual, March 24-28. The following year, in 2008, it will be in San Diego, later than usual, from April 13-17th. By then I’ll be in the third year of my program, and can perhaps present part of the early research for my dissertation.

New York

San Diego