The 6th Barcelona Conference on Education (BCE2025)
Join us in Barcelona for BCE2025!
September 30 – October 4, 2025 | Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) and the IAFOR Research Centre at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, Japan, invite you to join The 6th Barcelona Conference on Education, running alongside The 6th Barcelona Conference on Arts, Media, and Culture. With an open call for papers, this event offers an engaging exploration of Education, Arts, Media, and Culture's latest advancements, inspired by diverse global ideas. Rooted in international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary foundations, BCE/BAMC2025 provides exceptional networking, professional development, and opportunities to present and publish contemporary ideas for academics at all career stages.
Throughout its history, Spain has served as a bridge connecting European and Arabic thought, having been conquered by both Romans and Arabs. This historical intersection became the cradle from which Arab intellectualism spread into Europe, showcasing the potential for different cultures to thrive and mutually influence one another within the same geographical space. Situated at the crossroads of Europe and North Africa, with the magnificent Mediterranean Sea as its backdrop, Barcelona has long been a focal point for intercultural communication and exchange and a harmonious coexistence of various cultures and ideas.
Today, this legacy continues to thrive in the city. Barcelona not only boasts its status as an international hub, seamlessly blending tradition and modernity, but it also serves as a hub of political and cultural uniqueness. As the epicenter of Catalonian separatism, Barcelona is a living testament to a politically active civil society composed of a distinct cultural and linguistic minority that ardently fights for its rights. Barcelona is where the realms of multiculturalism, linguistic diversity, political activism, technology, and global communication intersect, making it an ideal setting to explore interdisciplinary themes and collaborate with scholars from around the world.
In this dynamic and globally connected city, our conference, with a thematic focus encompassing Education, Arts, Media, and Culture, provides an opportunity to engage with a rich tapestry of ideas, cultures, and perspectives. Barcelona is where the realms of multiculturalism, linguistic diversity, political activism, technology, and global communication intersect, making it an ideal setting to explore interdisciplinary themes and collaborate with scholars from around the world.
In keeping with IAFOR’s commitment to interdisciplinary study, delegates at either conference are encouraged to attend sessions in other disciplines. Registration for either conference will allow delegates to attend sessions in the other. We expect the resultant professional and personal collaborations to endure for many years, and we look forward to seeing you in Barcelona and online!
– The BCE2025 Programme Committee
- Venue & Location: Held in Barcelona, Spain (and online)
- Dates: Tuesday, September 30, 2025 to Saturday, October 04, 2025
- Early Bird Abstract Submission Deadline: May 02, 2025*
- Final Abstract Submission Deadline: July 04, 2025
- Registration Deadline for Presenters: August 08, 2025
*Submit early to take advantage of the discounted registration rates. Learn more about our registration options.
Call for Papers
The BCE Programme Committee welcomes papers from a wide variety of interdisciplinary and theoretical perspectives, and submissions are organised into the following streams:
- Teaching & Learning
- Educational Structures
- Community & Society
- Language & Culture
- Psychology, Mind & Brain
- Innovation & Technology
- Special Themes and Areas of Focus
IAFOR's Conference Themes for 2025-2029
Our four themes can be seen as standalone themes, but they are also very much in conversation with each other. Themes may be seen as corollaries, complementary, or in opposition/juxtaposition with each other. The themes can be considered as widely as possible and are designed, in keeping with our mission, to encourage ideas across the disciplines.
About IAFOR’s Education Conferences
IAFOR promotes and facilitates new multifaceted approaches to one of the core issues of our time, namely globalisation and its many forms of growth and expansion. Awareness of how it cuts across the world of education, and its subsequent impact on societies, institutions and individuals, is a driving force in educational policies and practices across the globe. IAFOR’s conferences on education have these issues at their core. The conferences present those taking part with three unique dimensions of experience, encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating heightened intercultural awareness and promoting international exchange. In short, IAFOR’s conferences on education are about change, transformation and social justice. As IAFOR’s previous conferences on education have shown, education has the power to transform and change whilst it is also continuously transformed and changed.
Globalised education systems are becoming increasingly socially, ethnically and culturally diverse. However, education is often defined through discourses embedded in Western paradigms as globalised education systems become increasingly determined by dominant knowledge economies. Policies, practices and ideologies of education help define and determine ways in which social justice is perceived and acted out. What counts as "education" and as "knowledge" can appear uncontestable but is in fact both contestable and partial. Discourses of learning and teaching regulate and normalise gendered and classed, racialised and ethnicised understandings of what learning is and who counts as a learner.
In many educational settings and contexts throughout the world, there remains an assumption that teachers are the possessors of knowledge which is to be imparted to students, and that this happens in neutral, impartial and objective ways. However, learning is about making meaning, and learners can experience the same teaching in very different ways. Students (as well as teachers) are part of complex social, cultural, political, ideological and personal circumstances, and current experiences of learning will depend in part on previous ones, as well as on age, gender, social class, culture, ethnicity, varying abilities and more.
IAFOR has several annual conferences on education across the world, exploring common themes in different ways to develop a shared research agenda which develops interdisciplinary discussion, heightens intercultural awareness and promotes international exchange.
About IAFOR
"Inspiring Global Collaborations"
Founded in 2009, The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) is a mission-driven politically independent non-partisan and non-profit organisation dedicated to encouraging interdisciplinary discussion, facilitating intercultural awareness and promoting international exchange, principally through educational interaction and academic research. Based in Japan, its main administrative office is in Nagoya, and its research centre is in the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), a graduate school of Osaka University. IAFOR runs research programs and events in partnership with universities, think tanks, and other associations. Through its international, intercultural and interdisciplinary conferences, research, and publications, IAFOR is a network hub for interdisciplinary discussion across Asia and beyond.
Read more about IAFOR.