The Social Theory and Education SIG aims to support and develop theoretically informed educational research, to engage with and facilitate new social theory and to explore the relationships between theory-work and research. Social theory here refers to the use of theoretical frameworks to explain and analyse social action, social meanings and large-scale social structures. The field is interdisciplinary, drawing ideas from a range of contributing disciplines but particularly from politics, philosophy and sociology. Social theory aims to develop concepts and ontologies that can provide social research with conceptual and methodological tools for analytical and interpretational work. The SIG plans to accommodate and encourage work which applies and develops ideas and concepts from social theory to education research, as well as exploring and critiquing the contributions to education of major social theorists. Our primary focus is substantive research applications of social theory, but we will also seek to support the development of new theoretical work and reflexively consider the role of theory in relation to research and the analysis of data.
Co-teaching provides a collaborative pedagogy in initial teacher education, whereby co-teachers share expertise to: improve the learning environment for students, and develop each other’s practice. Sharing of expertise via close... [...]
There is a lack of historical accounts of the further education (FE) sector in England and Wales, which is reflective of its broader historical-cultural positioning. FE sits between secondary schooling and higher education, delivering vocational,... [...]
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 in education (Kezar & Eckel, 2002) which have been... [...]
Thank you for your interest in this event. There is planned website maintenance this week so unfortunately we cannot take registrations online. Please call the BERA office on 0207 331 5217 to register over the phone for this event. This... [...]
Some decades ago, several studies advanced an unexpected answer to an age-old question: schools do not help students improve their social positions (see for example Coleman et al., 1966). This shocked the educational community. If schools were... [...]
Many BERA members will be very familiar with terms such as evidence-informed practice, evidence-based practice and research-engaged teaching. The recent BERA close-to-practice research project is the latest in a flurry of work focussing on the... [...]
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