Universities, schools and a system in flux – looking back on Carter and looking forward to the future of Initial Teacher Education in England

In 2014 I was part of the Carter Review of ITT – an experience that was rewarding, intense and often stressful. I met a student teachers, mentors, heads, university and school based tutors, NQTs...

Filling in the ‘Hole in the Wall’: The pedagogical implications of digital technology and learning with a SOLE

The World Wide Web has changed how we do everything forever. We can literally find out anything we want thanks to Google and numerous other search engines competing for our attention. You can buy...

BERA President’s Roundtables 2015-17: Methodological challenges in education(al) research

BERA is starting a series of presidential round table seminars that will draw on processes of agenda- setting, horizon-scanning, evidence review and user engagement to explore key methodological...

Socially mixed schools but limited social mixing? Children’s and Adults’ Friendships Across Social Class and Ethnic Difference

I had such a homogenous schooling [in a private school] and I think that gave me a terribly blinkered view of society which I’m hoping that I’ve shrugged off some of it, but I don't think you...

Framing the geographies of higher education participation: schools, place and national identity

How young people make choices about university, where and what to study has been a question asked by many social researchers, policy-makers and practitioners alike. Research has shown that when...

Fy Ardal/My Neighbourhood: Pupils’ perceptions of place — a pedagogy for living in Wales

For the past three years, the Wales Institute of Social & Economic Research Data & Methods (WISERD) has been conducting research with pupils, teachers and parents in 29 primary and secondary...

EAL Learners’ Mother Tongues: To include or Exclude. A Randomized Comparison of Alternative Approaches

In 1684 Charles Hoole, Latin teacher and celebrated educationalist, published a collection of Latin colloquies, presented side-by-side with English translations. Hoole included the translations so...

Teacher agency: What is it and why does it matter?

Highlights from the first 1,000 BERA Blog posts

The concept of ‘teacher agency’ has elicited a fair amount of attention recently, including a special edition of Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice. And yet, it remains an elusive...

Research Matters

A colleague recently applauded the professionalism of educators, quoting in particular the ‘inquisitive minds’ they possess. The positive definitions of inquisitiveness - inclined to...

Much ado about something: The effects of the National Student Survey on higher education

This research (for the British Academy/Leverhulme) set out to gather evidence on the effects of the National Student Survey (NSS) ten years after its introduction. The effects of the survey go...

When the poor relation comes to town! Education’s contribution to social science research methods

Maintaining global competitiveness in a fast-changing data landscape requires ongoing investment of resource For some time the development of research capacity has been a concern amongst...

How do you measure a national curriculum?

One of the trends in educational research has been towards more sophisticated understandings about which research methods are appropriate to answer particular research questions. For example a...