American education has been understood for decades as a key element in the development of domestic and international policy, and historians of the United States have analysed many aspects of the field. Education factors in everything from federally-mandated public education post-emancipation, Progressive era initiatives and immigration policies of the early twentieth century, the GI Bill’s impact on campus expansion and social mobility from the late 1940s well into the 1960s, the Brown and Brown II decisions, and the rise of mass incarceration as part of the school-to-prison pipeline.
While the study of American educational history, especially that of higher education, is a well-established field in the U.S., until recently it has been a significantly smaller area in the UK. There has been an increase over the last several years in the number of historians working in the area of education and American history in the UK, making the collaboration between these scholars timely. Drs Rebecca Stone (Warwick) and Kate Ballantyne (Liverpool John Moores University) are co-organising the 2027 HOTCUS Winter Symposium to provide discussion of these subjects.
The symposium will take place over one day, on Friday, 19 February 2027, at the University of Warwick, co-sponsored between Warwick and Liverpool John Moores University’s Centre for Modern and Contemporary History. Individual paper proposals, three-person panel proposals, and roundtables on specific issues are equally welcomed, for example:
The social, political, and cultural histories of US education
Aspects of education more broadly (e.g. textbooks, student experience, teaching, alternative pathways, extra-curricular education)
Any level of education (e.g. primary, secondary, higher education)
Foreign policy and/or international connections with American education
School policing and mass incarceration
Free speech and activism within education
Any time period of modern American history is welcome
Submission Note: We strongly encourage panels that include a mix of participants from across the career spectrum (i.e., from postgraduate to professor). Historically, women have been underrepresented at HOTCUS events. As positive action under the Equality Act 2010, we seek to encourage the increased participation of women by asking conference participants not to submit all-male panels.
To submit an individual paper, please send a brief CV (no more than two pages) and a 200-300-word abstract of the proposed paper. Panel proposals should contain a 200-300-word abstract for each paper and a brief CV (no more than two pages) for each participant. Please submit your proposals and CVs to events.hotcus@gmail.com no later than 1 November 2026.
