Spring 2022

Education for environmental sustainability Research Intelligence issue 150 This 150th issue of Research Intelligence reflects and builds upon the renewed focus on education for environmental...

The place of education in the government’s draft sustainability and climate change strategy

Recent research on climate change education in England indicates an absence of policy and pro-environmental ambition, and obstruction in relation to both environmental sustainability in general,...

Knowledge about what? ‘The knowledge question’ in the Norwegian curriculum

A fundamental question in education is, ‘What is most worth teaching and learning?’ A variation of this question can be directed from student to teacher: ‘Why should we learn this?’...

The ‘shadow education’ phenomenon

In research, educational services such as private tutoring, coaching and academic enrichment classes that operate outside formal educational institutions (such as schools) are commonly referred to...

What is the purpose of school and who should control it?

We all learned at school Churchill’s comment that ‘democracy is the worst form of government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time’ (quoted in Langworth,...

Why Wales has a head start in the future of post-16 education in the UK and internationally

Wales is currently in the middle of a curriculum and qualifications reform. Since 2015, ‘pioneer’ schools across the principality have been contributing to the development of a new national...

Editorial: The playful academic

The playful academic

Imagine a place of learning where progressive failing, building resilience, and developing individual and collective skills, values and creativity are not only thought about as a theoretical...

Playful creativity

The playful academic

‘Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.’ (Attributed to Jean Piaget) Learning is often compromised by competitiveness (Brown & Vaughan, 2009). Bred from the...

Playful interventions: Measuring impact on learning

The playful academic

Figure 1: PMM tracking individuals’ understanding of ‘playfulness and me’ over the course of several workshops and a field trip. Red text was added before any workshops were...

Connection and creativity despite Covid-19: Playful learning at university during the pandemic

The playful academic

Over the past decade, interest in play and playful learning in higher education (HE) has grown significantly (James & Brookfield, 2014; James & Nerantzi, 2019). Publications, conferences and...

Does playfulness have a place in higher education? A reflection on using playfulness when teaching research methods to postgraduate students

The playful academic

Playfulness has been defined as a disposition (Barnett, 1991) a mindset (Skilbeck, 2017) and fundamental for creativity (Cheng-Ping Chang, 2013). I have spent many years working in play and...

Playful praxis: A student’s perspective

The playful academic

Now in my fifth year of higher education (HE), I am in the unfortunate position to have more years as an undergraduate to reflect on than most, yet still have more to look forward to. Yes, I am a...