Previous studies on the impact of grade retention on academic self‐concept suffer from inconclusive findings. There is no consensus if retention yields long‐term benefits that could offset its opportunity costs and, if so, under what conditions. Therefore, this article examines whether grade retention decreases academic self‐concept and whether this relationship is mediated by sense of belonging. Moreover

Whilst it is accepted that art education is a cognitive endeavour, the value and contribution of cognition to art education is often deliberated. By examining literature concerning conceptions of cognition and contextualising studies with the findings of a 5‐year artographic inquiry into cognition in the lived experiences of artist teachers, this article is able to present a case for the reinstatement

This introduction offers an overview of the concept of populism, the debates around its definitions and its relationship with democracy and the significance of attending to populist politics in the context of education. It also lays out the political contexts in which authors have engaged with education and populist politics in the UK, Brazil and Israel, and the ways in which they understand populist

Globally, access to higher education has increased, but inequalities by socio‐economic background remain. This article explores the relationship between early schooling opportunities (and learning) and progression into higher education in four low and middle‐income countries. We analyse data from the Young Lives longitudinal study, following cohorts of young people from age 5 to 22 in four country

Countering violent extremism (CVE) continues to be a topic of national and international concern as well as media interest. In the field of CVE, educational institutions have an important role to play, but precisely how educators and policymakers should best respond to extremism within schools remains unclear. This article draws on interviews with multiple stakeholders implementing a small‐scale nationally

Silence infuses all aspects of our daily communications: what we say and what remains unspoken; those to whom we speak, and those we ignore; those we trust and respect, and those we do not. In the school environment, interactions between students and teachers lie at the heart of pedagogy. This relationship is also marked by its silences, and the concept of ‘student voice’ arose out of these silences

A significant proportion of pupils move school during their school career for reasons other than standard structural moves between educational stages. Little is known about the underlying causes of these moves and the characteristics and experiences of mobile pupils are challenging to research. There is currently a large disconnect between the macro level of system structures, data and policy and the

The aim of this article is to emphasise physicality and embodiment in child‐centred research, fieldwork and intellectual activity. It will argue that research is not a separate form of action, placing the researcher in a position of epistemological privilege, but an embodied capacity developed through practical activity. This will be explored through an examination of the ‘least‐adult’ positionality

In the midst of an international debate about immigration, this qualitative ethnographic study focuses on the stories and teaching practices of immigrant and refugee educators working with immigrant and refugee youth at a community‐based after‐school programme in the Midwestern region of the USA. Using existing literature to describe the educational experiences of immigrant and refugee youth and teacher

This article draws heavily on the post‐abyssal philosophy of Boaventura de Sousa Santos in order to theorise new ways of thinking about research ethics in settings affected by armed conflict and crisis, and to put them into practice. Our article explores the dilemmas and tensions faced by four graduate students and a supervisor across diverse international settings. For some of us, these are places

Based on analysis of an administrative dataset, which includes granular detail on 800,000 English students over a 10‐year period, this article identifies an urban ‘escalator’ effect in entry to elite universities, with disadvantaged youth in the urban centres of England having higher rates of entry than similarly disadvantaged youth located rurally. Using multilevel modelling, as well as Geographic

Neoliberalism has become a highly dominating and taken‐for‐granted way of organising the university sector around the world. In the critical educational literature, this market‐based rationality has been scrutinised in detail over the past decades. However, rather scant attention has been directed to how university managers and administrators, apart from setting up quasi‐markets, may intervene more

Today’s learners are engaging in study where access to knowledge is easier than it ever has been in human history. Rapid advancement of technology and the increasing ease with which communication and interaction can occur has dramatically changed the landscape in which teachers of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) operate. The contemporary skills that students are required to

Conceptualisations and constructs of children and childhood are temporally and contextually grounded. Historical documents are rich sources of insight and understanding regarding how children were understood, valued and treated at various times by particular societies. This article explores the conceptualisation of children and childhood in the 26‐county Irish Free State (South) and the 6‐county Northern

The English further education (FE) sector caters for young learners who are regularly defined as at risk due to a range of economic and social challenges, as transitions from youth to adulthood become more protracted, and inequalities amongst young people and between generations persist and deepen. At a time when policy places increasing responsibilities on governors and leaders to balance college

Across the world, children are forced to leave their homes for far‐flung destinations. This global phenomenon has particular impact in Europe, where there are now more child refugees than since World War II. Education plays an important role for children with extraordinary experiences seeking to build meaningful lives in their new context. This article offers a new theoretical approach to underpin

Less‐advantaged students are under‐represented at prestigious universities, but can we infer that they actively avoid them? This research measured university applicants’ knowledge of 115 UK universities. Using card‐sort tasks within an interview format, 56 Year 13 students from different types of 16–19 education described how they chose five courses for their application form. Significant cross‐cohort

This commentary is offered in response to the British Educational Research Association (BERA)’s commissioned report on close‐to‐practice research. In conducting a rapid evidence assessment coupled with a small number of qualitative interviews, the report represents an overly dichotomised and partial approach to understanding the relationships between research and practice, and the nature of knowledge

This article reports an unprecedented exploratory small‐scale investigation of the views of senior school leaders in southwest England relating to ‘off‐rolling’ (illegal exclusionary practices). ‘Off‐rolling’ is conceptualised as a policy technology, however, the conceptual framework used in data analysis derives from Foucault’s treatment of power and pleasure, and the constitution in discourse of

International authors have argued that social class inequalities can influence parental engagement in education. Lareau argued that middle‐class families possess the resources to actively cultivate their children to succeed academically, whereas working‐class and poor families feel they lack such resources and allow their children to develop limited and passive relations with school. This article applies

This study problematises the contribution of India’s school textbooks in students’ national identity constructions in an overseas school in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The textbooks construct students’ national identity on the concepts of India’s secular democracy, colonial resistance and equal citizenship rights. Notwithstanding study participants’ ambivalent identification with these ideals, they

This study focused on whether and how teachers implemented the principles of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies and the challenges teachers faced while trying to implement these principles with Syrian students in Turkey. The study was built on the four components of pedagogies: academic achievement; cultural competencies; sociopolitical consciousness; and the sustainability of culture. Qualitative

This article shows the intersections of right‐wing conservative discourse and evangelical religious proselytism in shaping right‐wing populist discourse in Brazil and its implications on the education policy in the last decade. Since re‐democratisation in the 1980s, the policy path sought to guarantee progressive and inclusive public education, which became under threat due to the escalation of right‐wing

The Covid pandemic and the cancellation of state examinations caused unprecedented turmoil in the education systems on both sides of the Irish Sea. As the policy of calculating grades using purpose‐built algorithms came undone in the face of a barrage of appeal, protest and legal action, the context in which the policies had been devised collapsed. The British and Irish governments had initially adopted

This article analyses the perspectives and experiences of refugee and immigrant secondary school students in the USA who are from the Democratic Republic of Congo to examine the interplay between identity and civic education, and broader socio‐political discourses around immigration and inclusion. Data are drawn from a 2‐year qualitative study that took place between 2016 and 2018, and included interviews

While young South Koreans’ (SKs’) views on North Korean (NK) refugees, North Korea and Korean reunification have become increasingly negative or callous, less is understood about viable interventions to address their aggravating attitudes. Through the lens of Allport’s intergroup contact theory, the current study explored how SK college students’ friendships with NK refugees influence their perspectives

This article presents an analysis of various language policy mechanisms currently circulating in secondary schools in England, with a particular focus on those that intermingle ‘language’, ‘standard English’ and ‘discipline’. Although the connections between language, ideology and behaviour are well established within critical educational linguistics, this has not been explored in relation to current

Drawing on observations and interviews with teachers and students enrolled in a camp secondary school, this article documents how youth aspirations are constructed, supported and constrained in the context of a limited opportunity structure. Data demonstrate that schools enforce cultural scripts of meritocracy, along with assurances that hard work in school will be rewarded with post‐secondary education

This article explores the relationship between school choice, student mobility and school segregation in Barcelona. The case of Barcelona is particularly interesting because the school admissions policy combines a particular design of catchment area with a significant level of choice options. We work on students and school register datasets for the school year 2016–2017 to observe the association between

This article analyses two case studies from the Israeli education system that demonstrate how religious themes and language are used in service of populist politics. First, ‘Being Citizens in Israel’ is the standard high school civics textbook that underwent a major revision in 2015. The second case study focuses on new school programmes that focus on the rebuilding of the Third Jewish temple, and

This article presents findings from research focusing on family engagement within alternative provision. With the existing literature on alternative provision scant, this article analyses the extensive assemblage of family engagement within settings as practitioners navigate complex family environments often characterised by poverty, crime and substance abuse. While settings create formalised structures

In 2016, Uruguay started gathering longitudinal student data to improve educational trajectories by putting in place an ‘early alert’ system. Underlying the system is the understanding that prior schooling predicts likelihood of grade repetition and grade repetition predicts later school dropout, while close follow‐up can help prevent both repetition and dropout. We used a database of administrative

This article disrupts dominant discourses around boys and reading that often homogenise young males as reluctant, disengaged and, at times, adversarial readers. Rather than essentialising boys, we argue there is a need for a more sophisticated knowledge base about the influences, constraints and diverse experiences of boys as readers in society today. Drawing on interviews (n = 30) with Year 4 (8 to

Recently, national populist politics has been translated with the emergence of two overlapping narratives of Islamophobia and anti‐EU immigration media discourses. Such discourses have been made highly visible in the increased spike in hate crimes that have been a hidden cost of the national(ist) debate about Britain leaving the European Union (Brexit). This is the context in which we can trace a remarkable

There is a strong rationale for people seeking asylum and refugees given temporary protection to be key beneficiaries of Australian higher education equity practices. However, despite the extreme precarity they face, this group remains among the most educationally disadvantaged populations in Australia. Here, we use critical discourse analysis to examine the publicly available statements of 38 Australian

There is an enduring issue on whether student‐ and school‐level covariates should be included in value‐added school effects models, in addition to prior achievement. Proponents argue that the addition of covariates allows fairer comparisons of schools, whereas opponents argue that it excuses poorly performing schools and obscures policy‐relevant school differences. School‐level covariates are problematic

How do young graduates view the role of immediate families in influencing/supporting them as they start their working lives and how do those reflections affect how they think of themselves as graduates? Social, political and economic changes have led to many young people being dependent on family for longer, but how does this play out in their reflections? This article addresses these questions by

The development of digital skills for all is a key focus of many educational policies across the globe. Despite the significant attention paid to the nature and suitability of such policies targeted at young people, there has been far less focus on digital skills policies targeted at adults. This article contributes to this literature. It outlines current digital skills policy in England. Having established

This article argues that engagement with religion is a key challenge for all leaders of schools in twenty‐first‐century multifaith societies. It outlines the historic and current context of the UK and the Republic of Ireland, and national and European policies that prioritise community cohesion in education. The functional and substantive roles of religion are considered as reflected in education,

Whilst there is plenty of debate on the nature and role of data in social science research, data in schools tend to be understood in terms of numbers and used in limited ways linked primarily to attainment. The ‘datafication’ of schooling has been strongly critiqued for its powerful impacts on policy and practice, pupils’ experience, the curriculum, teaching and learning, and —as is particularly relevant

A lot has been written about the lasting implications of the Conservative reforms to English schooling, particularly changes made by Michael Gove as Education Secretary (2010–2014). There is a lot less work, however, on studying the role that language, strategy and the broader political framework played in the process of instituting and winning consent for these reforms. Studying these factors is important

The mental health and well‐being of teachers is an issue of great policy concern. This is particularly true in England, where high workload and the associated stress is thought to be leading to a recruitment and retention crisis within the education profession. But do individuals who decide to leave teaching for another career actually see their well‐being and mental health improve? We provide new

Mixed‐methods (MM) designs have gained increasing interest in educational research. Still, many studies collect quantitative and qualitative data but report these data separately and do not attempt to integrate them in practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the purposes and processes of integrating qualitative and quantitative data in an MM classroom interaction study. Issues regarding mixing

Governments across the west have put teachers at the forefront of efforts to tackle radicalisation of young people based on their proximity to potentially vulnerable students. This has proven controversial, as critics claim that this securitises teachers’ work and that they cannot be expected to accurately identify and respond to extremism. Despite investment in P/CVE teacher training, research to

Integration of research into teaching is a major area of interest in the field of higher education. Considerable work has been done on how staff and students view this integration, how it can be achieved in practice and how it might best be researched by scholars. However, relatively little research has considered how research‐informed teaching (RIT) impacts teachers’ own practice, in multi‐disciplinary

Third‐sector community organisations are important sites for learning, especially for the most excluded groups in society. However, scant attention has been paid to the various factors shaping educational provision in community contexts, and how these interact to shape the provision available to marginalised populations. This article presents new evidence addressing this gap, through drawing on interview

This article extends the evidence base on childhood circumstances, education and psychological distress. We examine the link between childhood advantage and disadvantage, the type of school attended during adolescence and psychological distress at ages 16 and 42. The analysis uses a large, population‐based birth cohort study, the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) (n = 17,198) using a structural equation

This article explores the role of gendered academic networks in the context of research evaluation, and women’s lived experiences of UK universities. Gendered power is conceptualised as an important aspect of inequality regimes, providing insight into how men maintain power and how power dynamics and informal networks function, characterised in this article as ‘the hustle’. A case study comprising

Since the introduction of the National Plan for Music Education there have been significant changes in music education within England. Whilst some celebrate figures that report increased access and engagement, many teachers and others continue to have legitimate concerns regarding the quality of the music education on offer in schools and Music Education Hubs. There are concerns that the provision

At a time when interventions in widening access to, and participation in, higher education aim to maximise impact by engaging with schools located in the most deprived communities, school pupils in rural communities, and who experience deprivation, are, in practice, less likely to benefit. Using statistics available from the Scottish government, we show that state secondary schools located in Scottish

The possibility of online Aristotelian virtue friendships via social network sites continues to be raised by philosophers, but as yet this has not been positioned within the realm of children or adolescents, who are known to be amongst the largest users of social media. Governmental agencies across the globe still struggle to define the boundaries of online usage for children, often depending on school‐based

The value of teachers’ engagement in and with research is long recognised and it is acknowledged that school–university research partnerships are one way of enabling such engagement. But we know little about how research‐based knowledge is negotiated into school practices. Here we draw on data from nine ‘research champions’, who are teachers in schools which are part of the Oxford Education Deanery

The development of doctoral students as university teachers has received substantially less attention compared with their development as researchers, with a similar deficit extending to research on how they experience and understand university teaching. This article reports the results of a phenomenographic study of education doctoral students’ conceptions of teaching in higher education. Using samples

Freedom of speech in universities is currently an issue of widespread concern and debate. Recent empirical findings in the UK shed some light on whether speech is unduly restricted in the university, but it suffers from two limitations. First, the results appear contradictory. Some studies show that the issue of free speech is overblown by media reportage, whilst others track serious concerns about

Natural scientists are relaxed about the multiple forms experiment takes in their various fields. Yet in education we have for many years constrained our notion of experiment. This methodological circumscription has been self‐imposed on the grounds that experiment of a particular, well‐defined form offers the clearest evidence of a link between cause and effect in assessing the impact of interventions

Equity and widening participation (EWP) initiatives in Australia are increasingly reimagined in policy as sites where participants are constructed as competitor‐individuals, with education considered only in terms of employability, social mobility and nation‐state market competition. In the context of EWP outreach, and with school students in particular, this can transpire into demands for narrow forms

This article addresses key topics of academic freedom and critical pedagogy during a time of right‐wing populist politics. The rise of the far‐right politician Jair Bolsonaro to Brazil’s presidency in 2019 was accompanied by a vow to eradicate any vestige of the ideas of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire from the country’s schools. Bolsonaro’s campaign was supported by ultra‐conservative groups that

This article explores pedagogic strategies for resisting the racism of contemporary populism and age‐old coloniality through challenging secularism in the academy, especially in social theory. Secularism sustains racism and imperialism in the contemporary academy and is inscribed, in part, through the norms of social theory. Post‐secular social theory has been positioned by some as the decolonial answer

This article, understanding populism as an essentially undemocratic ideology, argues that the pro‐social theatre education approach of ensemble pedagogy can offer a model of educational practice which counters these anti‐democratic rhetorics by creating a shared space for the enactment of empathetic discourse. Via an ethnography of the UK Shakespeare Schools Foundation festival project, the notion

The populist turn has produced contrasting conceptions of education. Research has suggested that individuals educated to university level are unlikely to support populist discourses. Meanwhile, populism is often understood as a social illness or disease that needs to be cured through education. This article argues that both populist and anti‐populist discourses are fantasies in which education comprises