News
Education: The State of the Discipline – BERA publishes new report and three tenders
BERA has published the first report from a major project that aims to comprehensively map the state of education as an academic discipline in universities, as a field of practice, and as a significant and central element of social and political policy in the four nations of the UK.
This first publication is a systematic scoping review that surveys and assesses the literature published between 1990 and 2020, and offers an account of how education as a discipline has been influenced by structures and processes both formal (institutional, political, and funding developments, for example) and informal (including individual and collective attributes and cultures) over the past three decades. It also examines how narratives and debates about educational research have changed over time; considers how well each distinct nation of the UK has been covered and compared; and offers recommendations for new directions for future research.
Alongside this report, we have opened calls for the next three parts of the project:
- A survey of education researchers’ perceptions of their work and identities in relation to education research in universities in the United Kingdom.
- An analysis of equality and diversity issues within the discipline.
- An ‘observatory’ that draws together the best and most current empirical data on the state of the education discipline.
The closing date for all three proposals is Monday 25th October 2021 and full details can be found under each opportunity.
The ultimate purpose of this project is to equip those interested in the development of education with the most objective and powerful information on which to base their advocacy for education. For example, a particularly important example of this advocacy will be better understanding of the numbers and characteristics of people employed in education departments, and other university departments, over time, and ways in which each next generation of education researchers can be encouraged to continue to grow the size, influence, and impact of education.