Using the physical environment to improve education

It might seem as if buildings, the physical location of education, are of only tangential interest to an education researcher: something that can be left to architects in the same way as the human...

Teaching Maths for Social Justice

Teaching mathematics is a social justice issue. Despite numerous calls from the mathematics education community, the curriculum in England remains stubbornly resistant to change. Too many...

Researching with young and developmentally young children: Ethical considerations, dilemmas and compromises

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

One of the most challenging considerations when researching with children is the question of gaining their consent to participate in research and their perspectives on the topic under study....

Against research methods courses in HE

It came as no surprise when I encountered a synthesis of 89 papers on research methods education in the social sciences including education (Earley, 2014) which found that students taking research...

Medical education. Where are we now and where are we going?

Medicine is the health profession, which completed its professionalization project first. That gave doctors exclusive rights to remunerative activities like prescribing and operating. Health...

Calling all independent researchers

A new forum for BERA When we talk of research, we are probably assuming that Universities are the institutions that carry it out. But many who have been involved with universities are still...

Post 2015 general election thoughts…

In the post 2015 general election period there are a range of issues that we as researchers need to think about when we are writing about education policy. Let me illuminate these with one...

Labelling children ‘dyslexic’ could hinder teachers

To what extent do teachers’ beliefs affect their ability to develop successful classroom practice over time? This question is relevant to many aspects of teachers’ roles. Our interest was in...

Positive Behavioural Supports – a critical analysis

In the US we have a systematic and prescriptive practice to deal with children manifesting chronic behavioural issues in the classroom. The method is called Positive Behavioral Supports (PBS). PBS...