Curriculum Journal Editors’ Choice Award 2020

The annual Curriculum Journal Editors’ Choice Award, which recognises the best paper published in the journal in 2020, was awarded to

• Ana Lucia Lennert da Silva and Christina Elde Mølstad for ‘Teacher autonomy and teacher agency: A comparative study in Brazilian and Norwegian lower secondary education’. (Curriculum Journal, 31[1]: 115–131).

The editors said,

‘This paper addresses one of the key concerns facing contemporary education systems – the pervasive homogenisation of educational accountability practices characterised as GERM – through a comparative study of two quite different education systems, Brazil and Norway. The paper explores the related but conceptually distinct issues of agency and autonomy in these contexts, illustrating how global policy agendas are mediated quite differently in the two settings. A strength of the paper lies in its conceptualisation of these two concepts, which are often conflated. The paper shows how teachers negotiate the constraints and opportunities afforded by centrally imposed accountability systems, often in creative ways that demonstrate considerable agency and result in the enactment of different kinds of curricula.’

Two further papers were commended:

• Claire Gorrara, Lucy Jenkins, Eira Jepson and Tallulah Llewelyn Machin for ‘Multilingual perspectives: Preparing for language learning in the new curriculum for Wales’ (Curriculum Journal, 31[2]: 244–257).
• Livingston, K. and Doherty, C. for ‘A counter‐narrative of curriculum enrichment in performative times (Curriculum Journal, 31[4]: 666–686).

The editors said,

‘These are three very different papers, but have in common that they offer a challenge to existing assumptions about curriculum that underpin much contemporary policy. The papers challenge in different ways – empirically and theoretically – and offer nuanced accounts of the instrumentalism, narrow performativity and weak conceptualisation that often characterises education policy and practice.’

BERJ Editors’ Choice Award 2020

The editorial team of the BERJ and BERA are delighted to announce the winners of the 2020 BERJ Editors’ Choice Award, which recognises articles published throughout 2019. 

The following winning article was selected by the editors from nominations received from the BERJ editorial board.  

• Belas, O., & Hopkins, N. (2019). Subject English as citizenship education. BERJ, 45(2), 320-339.  https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3500

Belas and Hopkins argue powerfully for how curriculum should respond to conditions of inequality and structural white supremacy. Drawing on the disciplines of political philosophy and history of education, their article demonstrates the intellectual breadth and relevance of contemporary work in the field of education, and the capacity for educational research to contribute to wider academic and social debates around Britishness and diversity in the English cultural canon.

The editors would like to commend two further articles: 

• Jerome, L., Elwick, A., & Kazim, R. (2019). The impact of the Prevent duty on schools: A review of the evidence. BERJ, 45(4), 821-837. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3527
• Jerrim, J., & Moss, G. (2019). The link between fiction and teenagers’ reading skills: International evidence from the OECD PISA study. BERJ, 45(1), 181-200. https://doi.org/10.1002/berj.3498

Review of Education Editors’ Choice Awards winners for 2019 and 2020

Recognising the highest quality and most impactful articles in the journal’s recent history, the editors of Review of Education have chosen two winning articles published in 2019 and 2020 respectively. Both articles have been made free-to-view to those without a subscription for a limited period, courtesy of our publisher, Wiley.

• 2019: ‘Child discipline and violence in Nigeria: A community‐based intervention programme to reduce violent discipline and other forms of negative parenting practices’, by Dorothy Ofoha, Rotimi Ogidan and Rosemary Saidu (RoE, 7[3], 455–492). 
• 2020: ‘Thinking about the nature of educational research: Going beyond superficial theoretical scripts’ by Brahm Norwich (RoE, 8[1], 242–262).

BJET Editors’ Choice Awards 2020

With this award the BJET editorial team give recognition to the most impactful and high-quality article published in the journal in 2020:

• ‘Teacher interventions in students’ collaborative work in a technology‐rich educational makerspace‘, by Anu Kajamaa, Kristiina Kumpulainen, and Helmi‐Riikka Olkinuora (BJET, 51[2], 371-386. 

The editors praised ‘its significant contribution to the field; its rigorous in depth qualitative methodology; and relevance to both practice and research’.

The article is published on an open access basis, so can be read in full free of charge, here.