School transitions and adjustment of children with neurodevelopmental conditions during the Covid-19 pandemic: Who was caught up in a whirlwind?

Transition from primary to secondary school is considered a key milestone in children’s education. During the Covid-19 pandemic, children experienced additional changes in their lives...

The BERA Blog: Highlights of 2022

BERA Blog end of year highlights

Yuletide greetings and festive cheer to all our readers and authors, wherever you may be. In these challenging times, we thank all of you for your continued support, enthusiasm and engagement with...

Reflections on using western survey techniques in Chinese contexts

This blog presents a possible example to apply western survey instruments to probe into the impact of gender and social economic status (SES) on career choices of engineering undergraduates in...

Principals’ perceptions of the teaching and learning of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)

Within the ‘Principals as STEM Leaders – Building the Evidence Base for Improved STEM Learning’ project, funded by the Australian Government Department of Education, Skills and Employment,...

Don’t be afraid of maths: If I can do it, you can too!

An example of students’ negativity to mathematics, according to Swan (2004, p. 2), was a question asked of four students aged nine and their teacher, ‘if Mathematics were a food, what would it...

Why is the Trump Baby so dangerous for children’s citizenship?

A balloon depicting President Donald Trump in the guise of a baby was inflated in Parliament Square in London on 13 July 2018. As the central image of the street protests during Trump’s visit to...

Educational attainment in Northern Ireland: Understanding inequalities through administrative data

Educational attainment inequalities receive continuous policy attention across the UK with certain social groups consistently underachieving. Our study (Early et al., 2022) used the first record...

‘We watch together’: Can consideration of sports’ histories support wider education?

As I write, World Cup 2022 fever is gradually taking hold. We don’t yet know what the lasting legacies of the debates and controversies of this event might be, but as a senior lecturer in...

The value of student researcher groups in carrying out peer evaluation in schools and colleges

Student researcher groups are small groups of secondary school and A-level college students, aged 13 to 18, who evaluate outreach activities – such as motivational speakers, study skills...