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,...

Reading during lockdown: Supporting vulnerable learners

Covid-19, education and educational research

Learning to read is perhaps the most important thing we learn to do. There is significant evidence that being a reader impacts on future social, emotional, economic and academic success. A failure...

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...

Applications of learning analytics in Latin America

In Latin America (LATAM), socioeconomic inequality and lack of resources shape the context of educational institutions in particular ways. Programme quality and dropout rates preoccupy...

Could Dido Harding move into education next?

Covid-19, education and educational research

Dido Harding was appointed as a Conservative peer (Baroness Harding of Winscombe) by then prime minister David Cameron in 2014. She is head of the NHS test and trace programme, and has been...

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

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

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 further...

Can employers and schools harness employer engagement to improve diversity and inclusion?

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

The call for diversity and inclusion has intensified in light of recent events of police racism in the United States, the death of George Floyd being the catalyst. Beyond the rhetoric of Black...

The fragilities in the English education system revealed by Covid-19, and how to put them right

Covid-19, education and educational research

Covid-19 has presented schools with a series of dilemmas since lockdown began, and continues to do so as schools seek to reopen to all their pupils. There have been few reliable sources of advice...

Maths at the kitchen table: Capturing teacher and family voices on online teaching and learning in Covid-19 times

Covid-19, education and educational research

The Covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on everyday life across the world. In January 2020, we could not have imagined that in just a few months as many as 138 countries would...

The increasing need to educate children about their rights: An outcome of lockdown measures

Covid-19, education and educational research

Many children in the United Kingdom, and elsewhere in the world, have been away from their regular school and early year settings, spending lengthy periods of time at home since the beginning of...

Students’ anxiety about the allocations of grades for cancelled high-stakes public examinations

‘My main anxiety at the moment is how I am going to be graded.’

Activism, autonomy and identities: Stories from early childhood educators

In pre-Covid England, early childhood education and care (ECEC) was already in a state of uncertainty. A maelstrom of structural conditions and an onslaught of initiatives had manifested as...