Child Poverty and Education: Philosophical Reflections seminar series

Seminar 3: Justice, Disadvantage, and Child Poverty and Education

Date: Thursday 25th March 2021

This seminar addressed questions of justice and disadvantage linked to child poverty and education:

  • What kind of metric of justice should be adopted to evaluate the disadvantage of children in poverty?
  • What educational indicators could be used to address the relevant manifestations of child poverty and education?
  • Is educational attainment alone sufficient to evaluate education opportunities and outcomes?

Sridhar Venkatapuram

Sridhar Venkatapuram is Associate Professor in Global Health and Philosophy and Director of Global Health Education and Training at the Global Health Institute at Kings College London. He has published widely in the fields of human rights, biomedical and life sciences and ethics, notably Health Justice: An argument from the capabilities approach (Polity Press, 2011).

Sridar has also been at the forefront of public/global practice and policy for over twenty years, working with Human Rights Watch, the Ford Foundation, Population Council, Open Society Institute and Doctors of the World, amongst other organizations, on human rights concerns around HIV/AIDS and other health issues, recently concerning justice and ageing.

Sridhar Venkatapuram, Distributing superpowers to the poorest children in the world

Adam Cooper

Adam Cooper is a Senior Research Specialist in the Education and Livelihoods theme of the Inclusive Economic Development (IED) programme of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa. His work is at the intersection of the Sociologies of Education and Youth, looking at how young people navigate various social challenges shaped by race, class, gender, age, language and spatial relations, amongst others, to create opportunities for themselves and others.

Adam’s current research interests include youth and the future of work on the African continent, the role of education in social mobility and how the ideas that excite marginalised young South Africans can be used to create educational and work-related opportunities for empowerment. He is a co-editor of the Oxford University Press Handbook of Global South Youth Studies.

Adam Cooper, Just knowledge? Economics, ethics and post-colonial terms of engagement

Tristan McCowan

Tristan McCowan is Professor of International Education in the Centre for Global Higher Education at UCL Institute of Education. His work focuses on issues of higher education and international development. His research covers areas of access to, quality of and equity in higher education, particularly in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Tristan is currently conducting multi-country research projects focusing on higher education pedagogy, graduate destinations and the public good in Africa. His research includes issues of citizenship education and human rights, include alternative and innovative universities, and indigenous education in the Brazilian Amazon and Mexico.

Tristan McCowan, Deschooling and educational justice