Virtual teaching for children with dyslexia: The realities and disturbing absence of research

Covid-19, education and educational research

I am writing this post from both a parental and scientific perspective. Firstly, from a parental stance, SARS-CoV-2 and subsequent coronavirus 19 has undoubtedly driven us into situations that...

Agility, return and recovery: Our new Covid context for schooling and teacher education?

Covid-19, education and educational research

Previously on the BERA blog (Kidd, 2020a) I have drawn attention to the work of Glade Primary School, an east-London school in the borough of Redbridge, England, and their ‘agile’ adoption of...

#BlackLivesMatter and racial justice in education: Contribute to a special series of the BERA Blog

Closes 31 Jul 2020

The structural inequalities faced by Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities have been deepened by a decade of austerity. We are in the midst of a global pandemic and, following yet another...

Implementing citizenship education in a post-conflict society: Lessons from Northern Ireland

Citizenship education is intended to foster civic and political participation by encouraging students to critically reflect on and challenge established attitudes, values and behaviours (Niens,...

Identifying the potential impacts of Covid-19 on school-based sexuality education

Covid-19, education and educational research

The ideas presented in this blog were developed in dialogue with a number of English sexuality education organizations, including acetUK, It Happens, Susie March, Think for Yourself, Teaching...

#BlackLivesMatter in education

The sickening death of African-American George Floyd by suffocation at the hands of a White-American policeman has justifiably fuelled the force of the #BlackLivesMatter movement across the world....

The rise of the flexible and remote teacher: A primary school’s response to the Covid-19 context in London

Covid-19, education and educational research

On Friday 29 May 2020, ITV ran a story on the London regional news about a primary school whose pupils were reported to be ‘traveling the world’ through the adoption of video conferencing (VC)...

Curriculum reform and inequality: The challenges facing Wales

Re‐educating the nation? The development of a new curriculum for Wales

Wales is in the process of undertaking a major overhaul of its national curriculum. Until recently, the curriculum largely resembled that put in place by the 1988 Education Reform Act. The new...

Re‐educating the nation? The development of a new curriculum for Wales

This series of blogs summarises new research featured in a special issue of the Curriculum Journal  (published simultaneously in English and Welsh), which explores the many issues that arise...

The 10 books that made me a sociologist of education

Over a period of 45 years working in higher education I have accumulated a lot of books. I am now sorting through that accumulation and trying to decide which I will keep and which I will pass on...

Is there a tension between teaching and assessing critical-thinking skills?

The widely varying quality of responses to the global Coronavirus pandemic presents yet another example of the importance of critical-thinking skills among leaders and the public dealing with...

Social constructivism and participative learning beyond bricks and mortar

Covid-19, education and educational research

As the world grapples with the short-to-longer-term imperative to identify distance- and remote-learning alternatives to previously face-to-face instruction, I am struck that some of the key...