Becoming a playful academic: A personal story

The playful academic

Throughout my life I have been exposed to an increasingly stressful and demanding expectation to perform, dictated not only by society (cultural pressures) but also through beliefs deeply...

New series of the BERA podcast

This autumn we have launched a new series of the BERA podcast. Over the next few weeks we will continue to feature emerging research which connects to policy and practice.  Already we have...

BERA funds over £40,000 of research on race and ethnicity

We are delighted to announce new funding looking at aspects of race and ethnicity across the education sector. There are five recipients of the new round of small grant funding: Melissa Jogie...

Open educational resources offer promise for more equitable teaching and learning

The past year and the pivot to online learning has highlighted and exacerbated inequities in education systems around the world. It is more apparent than ever that our schools must do better at...

Ageing in nature: Outdoor learning as lifelong learning

Wellbeing and being outdoors

MIND (2021) has adopted the New Economic Foundation’s Five Ways to Wellbeing and underscores that ‘keeping learning’ is one of the foundations of maintaining one’s wellbeing. In this blog...

The Skills for Jobs white paper: A chance to provide ‘flexibility’

The UK government’s Skills for Jobs white paper is clearly an attempt to realign post-16 education around the needs of employers. It presents a challenge for higher education to develop an...

Not another Cinderella story: Reflections on a collaboration to tell and imagine past, present and future stories of FE

For just over five years a unique project has examined the situation of further education (FE), mainly in England but also elsewhere in the UK, Australia and Ireland. The FE sector in England...

The BERA Blog: Highlights of 2020

BERA Blog end of year highlights

A warm and wintery ‘welcome’ to all our readers, wherever you may be. This time last year I wished all of you a seasonal ‘yo-ho-ho’, blissfully unaware of how 2020 would play out. Today,...

Evaluation of an immersive virtual learning environment for operator training in mechanical and plant engineering using video analysis

Immersive virtual reality (IVR) refers to computer-generated real-time, three-dimensional and interactive environments. Their use is associated with diverse potentials, such as spatially and...

Reflections on building rapport with university students in an online context

Uncharted terrain: Teaching and learning in higher education for times of uncertainty

As with other educators, the rapid shift to online delivery during lockdown has led to self-reflection on my teaching skills, how they transfer online, and my ability to use online tools...

Understanding adult education in community contexts: The case of the homelessness sector

Third sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, little attention has been paid to the various factors shaping...

#BlackLivesMatter: Black female professionals’ experiences in the workplace

Education, #BlackLivesMatter and racial justice in the UK and beyond

The devastating death of George Floyd, the Covid-19 pandemic, the #BlackLivesMatter movement and #TheSchoolThatTriedToEndRacism have excavated and highlighted various inequalities within our...