Whilst we have been very pleased with the response that we have had to our call for abstracts for the 17^th PASCAL conference in Taipei, a number of colleagues have requested an extension of the deadline. Therefore we are now announcing a new deadline of 1 April 2024 for further abstracts.

We are pleased to publish PASCAL Briefing Paper 22, entitled Harnessing Museums, Heritage and Education. PASCAL’s Learning Cities Network (LCN) on Harnessing Museums, Heritage and Education builds upon our prior Special Interest Group in cultural heritage and literacy inclusion, to now combine rich museum theory with innovative field-based practices. We engage with diverse stakeholders, including universities, world-leading museum and heritage sites, and governmental stakeholders, to address increasing needs for more informed, strategic and entrepreneurial professionals within the cultural heritage sector, and dialogical spaces for knowledge exchange on inclusive cultural literacy and practice.

Last week Bill Bowen discussed the fact that the topic of K-12 education in low-income urban areas is almost never addressed by researchers who identify themselves as urban studies scholars.  Even though the field of urban studies is broadly conceived and interdisciplinary, when he and several colleagues conducted in-depth interviews several years ago with leading urban researchers and examined the content of the most frequently used urban studies textbooks, they found little overlap with the topic of urban education.

The Australian Learning Communities Network Ripples newsletter for February 2024 features dates for our online learning forums, and the Brimbank Writers and Readers Festival (Victoria), as well as a summary of the City of Ballarat’s lifelong learning profile (Victoria) and the City of Port Adelaide Enfield Libraries 2023 Impact project. Feedback and contributions for the next edition of the newsletter is welcome.