Hello, and welcome to A Dash of SaLT. I'm Dr. Shelli Ann. And I'm so glad you've decided to listen in. I'm an American working and living in Ireland. I have a PhD in education and I teach sociology of education. I'm passionate about educating others on societal issues concerned with social and educational stratification, advocating for inclusion and voice in education, promoting civic engagement and community based learning, and exploring formal and informal learning theories connected with these societal issues. sociology is simply the study of society, human behaviour, social interactions and relationships. It shows us how we address problems in our everyday lives. sociology is concerned with equity and equality, gender, and race, cultural and socio economic factors and biases and social groups, as well as issues in institutions such as school, church and governing bodies that make up today's society. sociology explores how these institutions and issues have come into being, and what challenges in crisises it faces at local, national and global levels. Understanding these tensions and issues that happen where we live and around the world helps us to navigate ourselves and our interactions in our world using our sociological imagination. SaLT is an acronym for society and learning today. This podcast was created as an outlet for inviting fresh discussions on sociology and learning theories that impact your world. In each episode, I'm joined by a variety of friends and colleagues, to have frank discussions about societal issues that affect learning across the life course. Stay tuned to find out what's on the agenda for this episode of A Dash of SaLT.