Educating for sustainable futures in secondary education

What are we educating for in secondary education? In a world where if we want to know something we can just ‘google it’, and artificial intelligence can generate essays, presentations or...

The complexity of the relations between policy, research and practice in primary education

I would like to believe that our national policymakers for primary school education seek out the relationship between policy, research and practice. I’d like to think that to achieve this they...

Engaging with educational policy in difficult times

In December 1987, Secretary of State for Education Kenneth Baker summed up the purpose of the Education Reform Bill as ‘standards, freedom and choice’. Underpinning the bill was the belief...

What are we educating for? Education policymaking in England

Education represents no less than our vision of society, and the people in it. It represents values. How education policy is made tells us about whose values are prioritised, what sources of...

British Educational Research Journal: Call for special issues (2024)

This opportunity is now closed. The incoming editors of the British Educational Research Journal (BERJ) intend to publish a number of special issues during their tenure, which commences in...

Is there value in this proposed mechanism for expert policy advice in education?

This blog post is based on a recent article published in the British Educational Research Journal entitled ‘Towards a mechanism for expert policy advice in education’ (Skerritt, 2023). The...

Holding the space for professional learning

BERA Conference 2023

The professional learning of teachers and school leaders occurs in multiple spaces and potentially throughout their careers. Professional learning matters because it creates opportunities for...

Beyond the hype: The practical and ethical implications of generative AI in education

Artificial intelligence in educational research and practice

Imagine a world where a machine could offer students personalised feedback, generate new content tailored to their needs, or even predict their learning outcomes. With the rapid emergence of...

L2 proficiency, age of L2 acquisition, and working memory: Evidence from Mandarin–English bilingual students

Working memory (WM) is a limited-capacity mechanism that temporarily stores information in the mind and manipulates it when it is no longer perceptually present (Cowan, 2008). WM abilities have...

Primary school exclusion: The erosion of care in a performance-focused education system

Up until the Covid-19 pandemic, the number of children being excluded from primary school had been steadily rising (DfE, 2022). Now that schools are again operating as ‘normal’, those...

Catalysing Kuwait’s knowledge-based economy: Revamping higher education policy at Kuwait University for Vision 2035

The shift in education to digitisation has increased the need for adaptability and innovation (Ayoub et al., 2023). This pivot is deeply intertwined with the metamorphosis of higher education...

The potential of infrapolitical dissent for influencing climate change education policy

As academics working to ameliorate the impacts of climate change and environmental destruction through education, we often question the efficacy of our efforts. As higher education teachers, we...