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Writing a world-leading (four star) publication

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

The idea that research could be described as ‘4*’ came from the UK’s Research Excellence Framework (REF). Four-star research is 'world-leading in terms of originality, significance and...

Why we need a new digital curriculum for schools

It’s never been a safer time to be a child, in statistical terms, yet the perception is often very different. One reason for this is that people aren’t always very clear about the function of...

The effects of discourses in regional contexts on the development of curriculum-based literacy standards for adolescents in schooling: A comparative study of South Australia and Ontario

Governments in countries around the world are applying standards-based reforms to education in attempts to achieve future economic prosperity and social cohesion (Levin, 2010; Rizvi & Lingard,...

Analysing Design and Technology as an educational construct; an investigation into its curriculum position and pedagogical identity

The hierarchal status of academic disciplines, what defines valuable or legitimate knowledge and what should we teach our children is a topic of much debate. Amidst concerns of an academic...

Validating curriculum development using text mining

Developing a new subject from the ground up is often demanding. Developing a new program is even more of a challenge. However developing a new program for an emergent discipline in its own right...

Should we embed careers education in STEM lessons?

Schools have a number of functions but one of the key ones is to help young people learn so as to prepare them for their lives once they leave school; however, good careers education is lacking...

The desire for knowledge

I came across this innocuous looking phrase in an interview with the French sociologist of education Bernard Charlot on the internet. He was quoting the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan to explain how...

The paradoxical nature of Swedish school reform

a rigid concept of teaching where discipline in the classroom seems more important than the overriding goal of the curriculum In a recent publication in the Curriculum Journal (Fredholm,...

Why do teachers quit and what could help them to stay?

I recently conducted a study on the reported “national scandal” of teachers leaving the profession. For example, 40% of teachers are found to leave within their first five years (Wilshaw,...

Curriculum design of Physics master’s degrees and national pedagogic traditions: implications for degree comparability

In 1999 higher education ministers from 29 European countries signed the Bologna Declaration (currently 49 signatory countries) and committed themselves to the creation of the European Higher...

Examining secondary history students’ notions of historical significance when using millennia-wide ‘frameworks’

History teachers, teacher-researchers, government agencies and history education academics in England often report that students are frequently incapable of producing complex, developmental...

Guardianship of subjects in 2016

I very much welcome the revival of the British Curriculum Forum and was delighted to attend the recent conference “Investigating Knowledge and the Curriculum”. My reason for attending is that...