Critical thinking: An ambiguous concept in educational policy contexts
What is the role of transnational and national education policies in the realisation of critical thinking?
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The BERA Blog was established in 2015 to provide research-informed content on key educational issues in an accessible manner.
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The impact of the prevent duty on schools: What does the evidence tell us?
The UK government has become influential in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE), and Kundnani and Hayes (2018) document how its legislation and policy framework has been exported...
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Curriculum coherence facilitates school development
The ways in which local educational stakeholders interpret and understand curriculum reform is crucial to its effects on everyday school practice (see for exampleSpillane, Reiser & Reimer, 2002)....
Continue reading blog postEducation for Justice
Societies in many parts of the world are still dealing with the colonial legacy of educational systems that served a privileged few. Efforts are constantly made to redress the resulting historic...
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Challenging consumerism through education as human development
The culture of transforming everything into products to be ‘consumed by the market’ is manifesting itself as a global pathology. This trend is destroying longstanding communities of practice...
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What next for curriculum?
People are talking about curriculum again. Not just literacy and maths, but the whole curriculum. What’s more, there seems to be a real appetite for these discussions: organisations as diverse...
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Knowledge entitlement or misguided policy? The new multiplication tables check for primary children
In 2020, the UK government will introduce a multiplication tables check for primary school children aged 8–9 in England. ‘Times tables’ are a contentious issue because they represent a lot...
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Deconstructing the SATs process: Resistance is futile?
In April 2016, a mother voiced her concerns on the English Local Schools Network website (Secret Parent, 2016) about withdrawing her 10-year-old from the new key stage 2 SATs. Her main concern was...
Continue reading blog postAretaic pedagogy: How we can transform the aesthetics of good teaching?
Aretaic pedagogy is suggested as a refreshing paradigm of good teaching, putting at its centre, instead of a knowledge-based perspective, a virtue-based approach to education. Its origins are in...
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