Engaging low-income families in education research: An interdisciplinary exploratory study

BERA Conference 2023

Our comparative research project considered the challenges encountered when engaging low-income families in education research in the UK and China. In this blog post we highlight the context,...

Mobile phone bans in schools: Impact on achievement

Initial analysis of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development’s (OECD) Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) suggests that mobile phone bans might help with...

House of cards: The marketisation of school leadership qualifications in England

In 2017 the Department for Education (DfE) launched National Professional Qualifications (NPQs) in middle, senior and executive leadership, as well as a revamped NPQH for headteachers, to train...

Expert Panel on Educational Research Funding

BERA Council has agreed to establish an expert panel to investigate the situation regarding funding for educational research in the UK. David James (Cardiff University, and chair of the REF 2021...

The Forest School ‘facilitator’ identity: Dilemmas of helping or hindering learners’ agency?

The Forest School (FS) approach emphasises learner-centredness, play-based learning and long-term and repeated experiences, set within a woodland context. Adults facilitate, rather than direct,...

Teachers are doing it for themselves: Developing Beach School approaches to support an effective climate change curriculum

Zac Goldsmith’s controversial resignation letter in 2023 was interesting for its ‘insider’ revelation about the apathetic attitude of the present political leadership towards the...

‘I thought she would get there first but I did’: How close observation of mixed-attainment mathematics enabled the voice of the lower attainer to emerge

In this blog post I report on research exploring the use of mixed-attainment pairs in primary mathematics lessons in south-east England. Research into mixed-attainment learning is limited; as a...

Students as the co-creators of the sustainability curriculum

BCF Curriculum Investigation Grant Research Reports

Developing an introductory course on climate change, social justice & sustainability

Higher education disadvantage: Enhancing a community through modes of delivery

From a sociological perspective, Bourdieu (1986) sees cultural capital as non-economic resources such as education and knowledge, while social mobility is the ability to move up or down the social...

Reviewing the term EAL from an antiracist multilingual perspective

This blog post is based on a doctoral research study that explored perceptions and experiences of multiculturalism of teachers, students and parents in four mainstream primary schools in the...

Editorial: What are we educating for? Introducing the BERA Blog Special Issue

This BERA Blog special issue started out as a seminar series in which we brought together policymakers, educational practitioners and researchers to discuss what we are educating for across the...

A vital role for further education: Educating extra-ordinary young people

This blog post focuses on the overlooked and precarious middle in the English education system: further education and the young people who participate in it. In Helena Kennedy’s words, further...