Clarence M. Batan is a young sociologist, researcher and teacher. His main research interests are social inequality, sociology of children and youth; education, work and development; information and communication technology; and quantitative and qualitative research methods.

He is a child of a carpenter (Israel Cabildo-Batan) and an office clerk (Violeta Mechilina-Batan), and grew-up in the municipality of Binangonan, Rizal. He graduated valedictorian from Binangonan Elementary School and Binangonan Catholic High School with various academic, literary and leadership distinctions.

Inspired by Philippine social realities, from early 1990s to 1999, he became a young social advocate of ecology, youth empowerment, and community organizing manifested in his own founded non-governmental organization, PUNLA : Kabataan sa Kalikasan (Youth for the Environment). This social advocacy motivated him to study Sociology in the Faculty of Arts and Letters, University of Santo Tomas (UST) from 1991 – 1995. While in UST, he received major university awards namely Rector’s Award for Scholastic Excellence, Quezon Award for Exemplary Leadership, and Benavides Award for Civic Achievement. This significant accomplishment conferred him the highest award given to a Thomasian student, the Santo Tomas Aquinas Award, for Exceptionally Outstanding Performance. His leadership endowed the UST Sociological Society the Pope Leo XIII Communitarian Award.

In 1995, Clarence graduated from the University of Santo Tomas with Bachelor of Arts in Sociology, Magna Cum Laude. In the same year, he was named one of the Ten Outstanding Students of the Philippines (TOSP) presented by President Fidel V. Ramos.

As a student of social life and a teacher of sociology, he has already served three communities: the children of Barangay Limbon-limbon (Binangonan, Rizal), the Aetas of Sitio Malasa (Bamban, Tarlac), and the young people of Talim Island (Binangonan, Rizal). His sociological experience with the fisher folks of Talim Island shaped his first major research work, and earned him a Masters of Arts in Sociology (1999) at the University of the Philippines (Diliman). This masteral thesis was eventually published as a book entitled, TALIM: Mga Kuwento ng Sampung Kabataan (2000), which was given the Lourdes Lontok-Cruz Award for its use of innovative, creative and gender-sensitive methodologies conferred by the Center for Women’s Studies Foundation (UP-Diliman).

He communicates with fellow youth leaders, students, and teachers in different schools, parishes, socio-civic organizations, human-centered institutions and foundations as resource speaker to seminars, symposia, fora, conferences (both local and national), and training-workshops. He works in UST as a research associate of the Social Research Center, a research consultant of the Educational Technology Center, and a teacher of sociology at the Faculty of Arts and Letters. He also served as one of the board of directors of the Philippine Sociological Society from 1998-2001.

AT PRESENT, he is studying Ph.D. in Sociology at Dalhousie University ( Halifax , Nova Scotia ) as a Government of Canada Award (GOC) holder. He is working on a dissertation about the structural difficulties and challenges of the processes of ‘growing-up’ in the Philippines .