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Whether enough highly qualified STEM workers are being educated and trained in the UK is an important question. The answer has implications not only for educators, employers and policymakers but also for individuals who are currently engaged in, or are considering entering, education or training in this area. Set against a policy backdrop that prioritises students studying more science for longer, this paper considers long-term patterns of participation in STEM education – from school science through to graduate entry into the highly skilled STEM labour market. Using a unique dataset that extends across seven decades and comprises many hundreds of thousands of students, the paper finds that patterns of participation in most STEM subjects have varied little over the period considered; suggesting that efforts to increase the numbers of students studying science in school has had limited impact on the throughput of students who study STEM, including the pure sciences, at university level and, subsequently, on the number of graduates who would be available to undertake highly skilled work in areas for which degree-level skills are a pre-requisite. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are sound educational and examining reasons for the use of coursework assessment and practical assessment of student work by teachers in schools for purposes of reporting examination grades. Coursework and practical work test a range of different curriculum goals to final papers and increase the validity and reliability of the result. However, the use of coursework and practical work in tests and examinations has been a matter of constant political as well as educational debate in England over the last 30 years. The paper reviews these debates and developments and argues that as accountability pressures increase, the evidence base for published results is becoming narrower and less valid as the system moves back to wholly end-of-course testing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognitive science-informed approaches have gained considerable influence in education in the UK and internationally, but not much is known about how teachers perceive cognitive science-informed strategies or enact them within the contexts of their everyday classrooms. In this paper, we discuss the perceptions and experiences of cognitive science-informed strategies of 13 teachers in England. The paper critically explores how the teachers understood and used cognitive science-informed strategies in their teaching, their views of the benefits and challenges for different subjects and groups of learners, and their reflections on supporting factors and barriers for adopting the strategies in their schools. The teachers' accounts illustrate some of the many complexities of adopting cognitive science-informed approaches in real-life educational settings. Drawing on their narratives, the paper emphasises the importance of acknowledging different contextual dimensions and the dynamic interactions between them to understand when and how teachers enact cognitive science-informed approaches in their classrooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the current crisis in education research and how we might confront it. It begins by arguing that the 'coming crisis' facing empirical sociology identified by Savage and Burrows (2007) applies equally – if not more so – to empirical education research. Education researchers can no longer lay claim to specialist expertise in the analysis of social institutions and our 'tools of the trade' are increasingly unviable. These developments are compounded by the dominance of the 'cultural turn' within British education research which has made it difficult for education researchers to develop a cumulative evidence base, leading to a lack of traction with policymakers and a privileging of cultural inequalities in education over economic inequalities. The paper discusses how the education research community might respond to the challenges and considers whether we might do worse than follow the suggestion offered to sociologists that they should take 'a descriptive turn'. Taking such a turn will not be easy, but the alternative may be that education research in the UK will be even more marginalised as it becomes increasingly out-of-step with the developments in data, evidence and analysis being fostered outside the academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the structure and substance of the Core Content Framework (CCF), a controversial document which stipulates content that providers of teacher education in England must incorporate in their programmes. We identify both a concept of instrumental trainability and a lack of coherence in the CCF which suggests it is unsuitable as a guide to a curriculum for teacher education. Drawing on Bernstein's work and its application by other sociologists of educational knowledge, we identify how the CCF embeds a 'generic mode' in teacher education that has roots outside of disciplinary structures of knowledge production and therefore foregrounds a type of official pedagogy that sees teaching as a technical performance and leaves gaps in the knowledge and understanding a new teacher requires to make sound educational judgements. Employing Muller's distinction between conceptual and contextual coherence, we argue that the CCF is based upon an imaginary notion of instructional practice that does not fully grasp the context of teachers' work. We illustrate the argument via an analysis of the language, structure, and three of the eight sections in the CCF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article is based on a Keynote Lecture at the 2022 Colloquium of the Society for Educational Studies. It analyses the articles published in four leading journals in 2021 and compares these with the same journals 20 years earlier. Key findings include a considerable increase in authorship and multiple authorship and a very strong international dimension to authorship in current UK-based journals. Two-thirds of the papers were empirical, and by far the most common type of research design was qualitative interview studies, often of a very small-scale nature. Aspects of the teaching profession were the most common form of content, and there was also a focus on social class and multi-cultural issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the Colleges of Advanced Technology (CATs), specialist providers of advance science and technology which existed in England and Wales for ten years after the 1956 White Paper Technical Education. Its central argument is that recasting the CATs as broader-based universities following the 1963 Robbins Report was a significant error which attenuated the progress of science and technology, and prevented the Colleges' development as viable providers of higher education (HE) outside the university sector. This decision, it is argued, was shaped by typically English views about the relative value of different forms of learning, the nature and purpose of HE, and particular beliefs about the primacy of the university. It also conflated the general desire to increase participation in higher education with the wish to promote science and technology in particular. A bolder option, it is proposed, would have been to build the CATs up as prestigious institutes of technology, along the lines of those found in the USA and continental Europe – although this, it is recognised, would have entailed a substantial shift in the role of the state and reduced the individual and collective autonomy of HE institutions in England and Wales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brian Simon (1915–2002) was a leading advocate of comprehensive education in the second half of the twentieth century in Britain. In the 1980s, in the face of the ideological offensive from the New Right, he firmly stood by Marxist ideals and resolutely resisted policies of the right-wing leading to the 1988 Education Reform Act. Despite this rigorous campaigning that differed from that of the Labour Party, Simon's significance has never been properly explored. In view of this, this paper aims to fill the gap by exploring Simon's distinctive contribution to the defence of comprehensive education in the 1980s. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of neoliberal reforms of education systems on the work of teachers and school leaders, particularly in relation to high-stakes accountability frameworks, has been extensively studied in recent decades. One significant aspect of neoliberal schooling is the emergence of quasi-autonomous public schools (such as Academies in England, Charter Schools in the USA and Independent Public Schools in Australia), characterised by heterarchical governance models, the promotion of entrepreneurial leadership cultures, and the promotion of a discourse of pursuing educational equity by means of 'achievement for all'. This paper explores the emergence of a mode of teacher professionalism characteristic of these quasi-autonomous schools, and conceptualises this as being 'neo-performative'. The neo-performative profession is shaped by the shift in the focus of the regulation and management of schools from 'governing to governance', and the consequential rise of the 'responsibilised profession', and marked by the emergence of an entrepreneurial model of school leadership. The paper argues that this new conceptualisation of teacher professionalism requires further, more focused, empirical study in order to explore how neoperformative teachers and school leaders articulate their vision of educational equity and social justice, and how they enact this vision in an increasingly intensified high-stakes accountability culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a constructivist grounded theory on the decision-making process that UK home and alternative educators undertake and the related influencing factors. Twenty-one participants from a diverse range of backgrounds were interviewed between one and three times over a two-year period. Some were current home and alternative educators and others were undecided, or had changed their minds about home educating. The core process is entitled 'Stepping out of the system?' It was constructed from three main categories: attitudinal direction, surveying the landscape and negotiating obstacles. Parents have opinions of school that developed before they began to consider how to educate their child; attitudes which are affect laden and guide the process of information gathering. The surveying the landscape stage involves both formal research and informal methods such as hearing the views of others and acting upon their own feelings. The final stage, negotiating obstacles, involves finding practical solutions to barriers they may face. The grounded theory is enriched and deepened by Reddy's (2010) concept of emotional refuges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On the occasion of its sesquicentenary, which coincides with an extended period of school closures imposed due to the effects of a global virus pandemic, this paper analyses the Elementary Education Act of 1870, and in particular in relation to its implications for compulsory attendance at school. It did not introduce compulsory schooling but helped to shape the ambiguities and uncertainties surrounding school attendance that have persisted into the twenty-first century, such as the case of the Isle of Wight Council v. Platt in 2017 and highlighted in the school closures of 2020. The paper discusses the historiography of educational legislation, looks closely at the requirements for school attendance in the 1870 Act and related legislation, and then examines the historical and contemporary repercussions of this ambiguity and ambivalence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A longstanding problem in the teacher workforce, internationally and in the UK, is the continuing and substantial numbers of qualified teachers who leave the profession within five years. This paper uses data collected from a survey to the last five years of teacher education graduates of UCL Institute of Education (IOE) in London, to explore what originally motivated them to teach, and the reasons why they have left or may consider leaving in the future. We discovered that despite claiming to be aware of the challenges of workload before entering teaching, workload was the most frequently cited reason for having left, or for leaving in the future. The data spoke to the reality of teaching being worse than expected, and the nature (rather than the quantity) of the workload, linked to notions of performativity and accountability, being a crucial factor. This paper draws on a substantial new source of data and explores reasons for leaving in the context of reported initial motivation of individuals who have left teaching, individuals who are planning to leave and individuals who are planning to stay in teaching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, a default retirement age no longer exists and more people choose to 'stay on' in their academic posts. 'Staying on' poses opportunities and threats in the academic labour market. Older academics can make a positive contribution to their institution through their expertise and experience. By continuing to work, paying tax and keeping healthy, they may directly and indirectly reduce social health and welfare costs. Alternatively, in a context where academic jobs may be decreasing, older workers may be positioned as limiting the employment and promotion opportunities for younger colleagues by staying on. Drawing on twelve in-depth semi-structured interviews with academics who have stayed working in university education departments, this paper explores these issues alongside policy-related questions about employment in the sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the liberal studies movement - an important if under-researched episode in the history of education. It examines the lived experience of a set of former vocational students, the great majority of whom eventually went on to teach in further and higher vocational education. All participants had undertaken a course of liberal studies alongside a programme of work-related learning at an English college of further education at some point between the mid-1960s and the late-1980s. The paper presents two key findings: first, whilst participants' experiences were varied and uneven, most seemed quite agnostic about liberal studies in their youth; second, the great majority of those who took part in the research were substantially more positive about their learning in retrospect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

England is currently facing a crisis in the recruitment and retention of teachers, with one-in-three newly qualified staff leaving the profession within five years of completing their training. This paper investigates several different aspects of the lives of recently qualified teachers in England, including their life satisfaction, mental health, working hours and their social lives. Recently qualified teachers are found to have higher-levels of life-satisfaction than their peers working in other professional/graduate jobs, despite working longer hours for little extra pay. They are also less likely to believe that Britain is a place where hard work gets rewarded. Yet there is no evidence that recently qualified teachers have worse mental health outcomes, or have a less active social life, than young people working in other jobs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores ‘home-school’ transport in contemporary schooling contexts in England. Home-school transport is a complex issue lying between government departments, policy frameworks, research and professional disciplines. It is complicated further by commercial and private interests alongside social and public ones. Informed by an interdisciplinary literature, the authors argue that there is an urgent need to develop understanding of the position of home-school transport policy and practices in contemporary schooling contexts, particularly in relation to school choice making and enactment. This paper calls for research to inform the development of home-school transport policy and practices that are socially just and sustainable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper examines the opening of branches overseas ('satellite colleges') by elite private schools mainly located in England ('founding colleges'), largely in emerging economies of the Middle East and South East Asia. We trace the development of these 'satellite colleges' over three successive waves of growth, from opportunistic venturing in Thailand in the late-1990s to their recent rapid growth in numbers in a phase characterized by the market entry of new actors and geographic diversification. We argue that the emergence of these schools occurs in line with the continued intensification and diversification of the Global Education Industry. This implies a significant shift in the modes of legitimation on which British elite schools typically rely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the case study of Anglesey and its pioneering comprehensive scheme, this paper aims to re-examine education reforms and interventions by central government c.1918–1950. This is undertaken in a bid to reveal the significance of such reforms for the way in which comprehensive secondary education was able to evolve at the local level. Lesser-known consequences of well-known reforms will be explored with a view to assessing their significance for a Local Education Authority with a comprehensive vision. Furthermore, these localized findings will be discussed with the aim of discerning their significance beyond the local level. Attention will be paid to what the implications of the inclusion of the 'Welsh dimension' might mean for the wider historiography of comprehensive schooling in England and Wales. It will be argued here that this re-examination of education policy has implications for how the consequences of some of the key educational reforms of the twentieth century can be viewed and re-evaluated. Perhaps even more significantly, the findings from this investigation suggest that by re-examining the influence of key policies and central government intervention, our understanding of the pioneering of comprehensive schooling can be further developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article re-visits contestation and critique over the nationwide introduction of comprehensive secondary schools in post-war England. In so doing, it considers the contribution of scholar-activist Caroline Benn (1926–2000) and a network of progressive educators who were challenging ideas about fixed ability or potential and aspiring to build a better, more inclusive education system fit for the times. The recent availability of Benn's personal papers opens an opportunity for a deeper understanding of the politics of comprehensive education, to consider the meaning and significance of the policy as our historical perspective lengthens, notably the question of whether legislation was needed to implement so major a reform and foster cultural change in a society characterized by substantial inequalities in income, status and power. It will be argued that we need to challenge contemporary political narratives that seek to normalize academic selection as a force for social justice and high attainment and maintain a belief in the myth of meritocracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK Government's PREVENT strategy to counter radicalisation and extremism has been the subject of criticism. Concerns arise over clarity of purpose, clarity of terminology used and potential human rights impacts. Where the policy engages with schools, one human right potentially engaged is the right of parents to transfer their religious beliefs to their children. This paper looks at how PREVENT risks negatively impacting on this right. It proposes a way that this risk can be reduced by adopting a proactive approach to the Government's security concerns which is centred on human rights education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evacuation of civilians during Second World War Britain included the relocation not only of school children and teachers but of whole schools and, in some instances, of teacher training colleges. This paper examines the evacuation of Avery Hill College, a leading teacher training college, from London to Huddersfield between 1941 and 1946. Focusing on issues of gender and community, it provides an account of the circumstances of the move, institutional relations and resources, the social milieu of war-time Huddersfield, the challenges arising from evacuation, the responses of staff and trainees, and the broader institutional and teacher education policy transitions that ensued. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper offers new insights into the effects of neo-liberal education policies on some Muslim majority schools in Birmingham. It critically reveals how the implementation of neo-liberal education policies, pursued by both Labour and Conservative Governments, has contributed to the failure of some mechanisms of school leadership and governance. The move away from agreed collective public and civil values to individualistic and private values as the guiding principles of public education has produced confusion in role, function and relationships. This is considered within the context in which secular liberal education aims to allow different minorities to flourish and recreate themselves. The paper outlines how the state has entered more fully into the lives of children and families through limitless government regulations and how OFSTED appears open to political interference by government regularly changing the framework for inspectors to suit the latest priority. Accordingly, the judgements of OFSTED have become contestable especially as the framework becomes the means through which every aspect of school life is to be considered, including ‘extremism’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper uses Basil Bernstein’s work on pedagogic discourses to examine a largely neglected facet of the history of vocational education – the liberal studies movement in English further education colleges. Initially, the paper discusses some of the competing conceptions of education, work and society which underpinned the rise and fall of the liberal studies movement – if indeed it can be described as such. The paper then draws on data from interviews with former liberal and general studies lecturers to focus on the ways in which different variants of liberal studies were, over time, implicated in inculcating certain forms of knowledge in vocational learners. Whilst it is acknowledged that liberal and general studies always represented contested territory and that it was highly variable both in terms of content and quality, the paper argues that, at least under certain circumstances, liberal studies provided young working-class people with the opportunity to locate their experiences of vocational learning within a critical framework that is largely absent from further education today. This, it is argued, can be conceptualised as an engagement with what Bernstein described as ‘powerful knowledge’. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Over the last 20 years, the use of administrative data has become central to understanding pupil attainment and school performance. Of most importance has been its use to robustly demonstrate the impact of socio-economic status (SES) on pupil attainment. Much of this analysis in England and Wales has relied on whether pupils are eligible for free school meals (eFSM). However, very little is known about the validity of this measure as a proxy for SES. Using a recent major birth cohort study, this paper examines the relationship between pupils' eFSM and their more detailed socio-economic circumstances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines youth practitioner professionality responses to neo-liberal policy changes in youth work and the youth support sector in the UK, from New Labour to Conservative-led administrations. Using a narrative inquiry approach, six early career practitioners explore and recount their experiences of moving into the field during changing political times. The narratives reveal differentiated responses to a climate of increasing managerialism and performativity but point to the value of narrative capital as a personalised resource. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper revisits the abolition of the colleges of education in England and Wales, specialist providers of teacher training which were effectively eradicated in the years after Margaret Thatcher’s 1972 White PaperEducation: A Framework for Expansion. Its central argument is that the way in which change was enacted thereafter represented a significant break with the model of policymaking which had held sway since the end of World War Two. Whilst more far-reaching change would come after Mrs Thatcher’s ‘conversion’ to neo-liberalism later in the decade, the fate of the colleges of education was, I argue, an important if largely overlooked episode in the history of education – especially in terms of violating the collaborative relationship between central government and local authorities which had, until that point, dominated education policy in post-war Britain. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The University of Birmingham was planned, advanced and established with both national and German models of a University in mind. Civic reasons for the planning of the University need to be viewed within a broader motivational context. Even with a strong sense of civic place, the University was conceived as a modern University with multiple founding visions. The set-up goals shifted as the size and complexity of the University increased and early ideas of social mission were either restricted or largely absent in practice. The paper examines the nature of the original institutional commitment to the ‘civic’ dimension of the University between 1900 and 1914 and highlights the many tensions that emerged between the growing academic standing of the University and its continued enthusiasm for the City and regional links. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Informal Science Learning (ISL) is a policy narrative of interest in the United Kingdom and abroad. This paper explores how a group of English secondary school science teachers, enacted ISL science clubs through employing the Periodic Table of Videos. It examines how these teachers ‘battled’ to enact ISL policy in performative conditions at the micro-scale, and how this battle reflected macro-scale epistemological and political considerations. Data from the study suggests that for some, ISL was low stakes as it was seen to have negligible impact upon performance data. As a result, there was some resistance towards enacting ISL and conflict between the formal and informal curriculum processes. Nonetheless, analysis indicates that the informants highly valued ISL despite the requirement for them to justify it over more formal and ‘effective’ approaches to learning science. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

There is an increasing emphasis internationally on better understanding the links between inequalities and processes within school systems. In England there has been a particular focus on rates of school exclusion because the national data has consistently highlighted troubling patterns of over-representation. This paper argues that a move away from recorded exclusion to other forms of sanction and provision makes more contextualised readings of these data key to better understanding their association with inequalities. It also explores the challenges faced by key stakeholders working to reduce inequalities within an increasingly marketised system. It concludes that embedding consistent good practice across the system remains a critical challenge. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Debate has grown about the legitimacy of Muslim faith schools within the British education system. At the same time, scepticism has developed towards multiculturalism as a normative approach for dealing with diversity. This article argues that it is worth retaining the normative impetus of multiculturalism by returning to its roots in political philosophy. In particular, we can draw on Will Kymlicka’s distinction between ‘internal restrictions’ and ‘external protections’ as a way to assess the legitimacy of minority claims. Having outlined this distinction, the paper applies it to the case of Muslim Schools. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education in England has moved inexorably away from the government toward the family with the introduction of tuition fee and maintenance loans. Although an important public policy issue, there is limited research on how the policy impinges on the private sphere of the family. This paper focuses on financial support given by parents, including difficulties and constraints along with their perspectives of and responses to student loan debt, and students’ views of their financial independence. In-depth interviews with 28 parent–student dyads revealed different patterns of support. Some parents, contrary to policy assumptions, felt responsibility for their children’s student loan debt and acted to avoid, minimise or cushion the debt. There was evidence of financial stress for less affluent families. However, students with no parental support and high levels of government funding felt financially independent. The findings suggest that more affluent families were able to protect their children from student loan debt in different ways, whilst those with lower incomes were not able to do so, apparently creating a new form of inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Michael Young’s work is central to debates about knowledge and the school curriculum. In recent years he has renounced his early argument that school subjects represent the ‘knowledge of the powerful’, arguing instead that access and equality for all students are dependent on ensuring that all get access to ‘powerful knowledge’. This paper provides an interpretation of Young’s work. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper argues that the evolution of further education colleges in England is marked by both continuities and change, and provides evidence to show that they retain many of the characteristics and the underlying rationale present at the turn of the twentieth century. A defining characteristic remains the colleges’ need to respond to student demand in a continued climate of voluntarism and lack of policy commitment to the education of young people beyond school-leaving age. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article enumerates several reasons for the high proportion of submissions being rejected by the "British Journal of Education Studies" in 2020, and introduces various papers included in the publication's first issue of 2021 such as evidence of life as a newly qualified teacher in Great Britain.