What are we educating for?

Although it has always been significant, the question of what we are educating for is now particularly important. There is growing consensus that the educational challenges we face require...

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

What are we educating for?

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...

What are we educating for in higher education?

What are we educating for?

It might have been easier to identify the purpose of higher education in the early part of the 20th century, when the few students who went to university came from a narrow demographic background...

Problems with a transactional view of higher education

What are we educating for?

In the past two or three decades there has been a fundamental shift from seeing higher education in essentially educative terms to seeing it almost exclusively in transactional terms. Young people...

Winter 2023/24

Research Intelligence issue 157: Research & practice on migration & education across the four nations of the UK

Initial teacher education: Are we missing something?

Initial teacher education (ITE) has increasingly come under public and political scrutiny in several countries due to a growing focus on competitive international rankings (Douglas-Gardner &...

Generating research income versus REF results: What is the relationship?

On 12 May 2022, the results of the United Kingdom’s Research Excellence Framework 2021 (REF2021) were released. Generally known as ‘the REF’, this framework exists to assess and hold...

Effective entrepreneurship education: The role of individual traits, creativity and passion for learning

Entrepreneurship is an important tool for reducing unemployment, speeding up economic growth, and fostering innovation and social reform; hence, entrepreneurship is now recognised as a valuable...

Education for sustainable development in higher education: Insights from a futures study

Higher education (HE) has a key role in supporting sustainable development (Walsh, 2022). Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) enables individuals to act and make informed decisions that...

Making the case for academic oracy: If it’s a game-changer for schooling, what about for university?

Keir Starmer’s announcement of Labour’s ambition for speaking lessons to be a central part of school curricula, and as a social mobility strategy, signals a return to prominence for oracy...

Measuring inequalities in student learning and how to close the gap

Equity in learning is a core goal of all teaching institutions (OECD, 2018). For universities, most assessments of inequalities in student performance are undertaken ex post, once the examination...

Practising collaborative filmmaking for inclusivity

Arts for All: Exploring inclusivity in arts education

The Covid-19 outbreak has made a serious impact on many vulnerable populations and revealed social justice issues (Lowell et al., 2022; Meda & Chitiyo, 2022). Embodying diversity and inclusivity...