Timothy Szlachetko
Teaching & Learning with HECUA Students
A friend recently asked me how I felt after teaching my second Scandinavian Urban Studies Term (SUST) program, and I instinctively responded "I love my job." I feel privileged to work with HECUA's second longest running program, one which enables students to experience contemporary Scandinavia and the important social justice challenges being faced in this increasingly diverse region.
I have always believed in the utmost value of education and the potential of the classroom as the great equaliser. I have been inspired throughout my education by a number of extraordinary teachers – teachers that listened, supported and motivated. Teachers that were student centred. My goal in SUST is to help support each and every student so that they can contribute to our learning community with confidence and be excited about the real opportunities that exist to change our world.
I have had an incredible time learning with my SUST students. I never cease to be amazed by the rich variety of insights brought to the program by students coming from diverse academic, social and cultural backgrounds. In SUST we are outsiders looking in. I myself am from Australia and I find that being an outsider in Scandinavia provides me with a unique opportunity to reflect on the challenges and opportunities it faces. During SUST we get to meet and learn with an exciting range of community activists and leaders, ethnic and non-ethnic Scandinavians and MOST IMPORTANTLY from each other. We are all simultaneously teachers and students. Have I mentioned that I love my job?
My Research and Current Projects
My professional experience embodies the aim of HECUA programs, that is the linking of theory with practice. I am a political scientist, having worked both in research and as a social policy adviser to government in Australia. I sincerely believe that research has to be informed by real life practice and vice versa. The knowledge of those working in the field is integral if we are to evolve policies for a most just society.
My current research is focused on the interaction between government education and employment policies in Australia and Scandinavia, particularly for young people as they transition from school to further education, training and working life. I am also working on a new HECUA program to be offered here in Oslo in summer 2006, entitled Fortress Europe: Immigration and Globalisation in the Europe. This will be an exciting program that will examine European Union immigration and asylum policy and whether this has resulted in the development of an exclusionary Fortress Europe.
Presentations and Publications
Badenhorst Anne, Keating Jack and Szlachetko Timothy. Victoria as a Learning Region: Background Report to the OECD Learning Cities and Regions Conference, OECD and State of Victoria, 2002.
Szlachetko. Timothy. Comparative social policies - Australian and Danish education and training reforms, Bodø University College, Norway, October 2003.
Szlachetko, Timothy. An Alternative Third Way: Danish welfare state experiences in the 1990s, Australasian Political Science Association Jubilee Conference, Canberra, October 2002.
Resume / CV
Tim Szlachetko and the 2005 SUST Group.
