Prof. Clarence M Batan, PhD

(Host/Moderator)

CLARENCE M. BATAN is Professor and Head of Department of Sociology, and former Research Director of the Research Center for Social Sciences and Education at the University of Santo Tomas, Philippines. He was President of the Philippine Sociological Society (2017-2018) and Vice President for Asia in the Research Committee on the Sociology of Youth (RC34) (2014-2018) of the International Sociological Association. His research interests are sociology of childhood and youth, sociology of work and employment, and qualitative and mixed methods. He obtained his AB in Sociology from UST; MA in Sociology from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. Having completed his graduate studies in North America (including a PhD in Sociology at Dalhousie University in Canada and an international research fellowship at Brown University in USA) he has been challenged through his involvement in Global South youth studies project to center the works of Southeast Asian theorists and Filipino academics in his sociological research. He actively serves as policy consultant in the Department of Education, and the Commission on Higher Education of the Philippine Government. He continues his istambay research through the project, Pilipinong Kabataang Naghahabi ng Buhay (Filipino Youth Weaving Lives) and leads The National Catechetical Study commissioned by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference in the Philippines which allows him to investigate more closely the present-day dynamics of the Sociology of Catholicism in the Philippines.