ISRS Seminars – Exploring Silence and Invisibility in Education – Eva Alerby 17.10.2024

What happens when a student, present in a classroom full of people, remains silent and unseen? If a student is both silent and invisible, can other students and the teacher truly perceive and notice that individual? This presentation explores the multifaceted nature of silence and invisibility within educational settings and broader societal contexts. It examines various ways to understand and respond to student silence and invisibility. It discusses the significance of these phenomena and their implications for education. It argues for the importance of listening to the silent and seeing the invisible as essential steps toward making the unseen visible. To understand and have insight into the meaning of silence and invisibility is of great importance, not only in educational settings, but for life itself.

Eva Alerby is a Professor of Education and holds a chair at the Department of Health, Education, and Technology at Luleå University of Technology in Sweden. She also serves as a Visiting Professor at the Department of Education at UiT – The Arctic University of Norway. Her research interests include relationships, identity, and diversity in education, as well as the philosophical and existential dimensions of education, such as embodiment and embodied knowledge, place and space, time and temporality, silence, and tacit knowledge. Her most recent book is Silence Within and Beyond Pedagogical Settings (2020). Additionally, she co-authored a recent article titled “Silent and Invisible Students: The Importance of Listening to the Silence and Seeing the Invisible” with J. Brown, published in the Journal of Silence Studies in Education (2021).