British Educational Research Journal最新文献

The term ethos is common within schools, describing culture and ‘feel’ of the institution. Ethos is also a contested term, and one that becomes more problematic the more one tries to understand it. Because ethos is founded within philosophical, structural and geographical aspects of the community and associated power balances, it is argued here that it provides an opportunity to study one aspect of the Bordieuan field of power, more specifically doxa. This paper posits that it may be beneficial to consider the term ethos through the lens of doxa, specifically when considering elite schools, and that doing so helps to further link the research into elite English boarding school ethos and discussions surrounding power, inculcation, authority, elitism and class within such schools. An analysis of the Head's Welcome from the websites of English independent boarding schools was undertaken, which identified both institutional and sector-wide doxa, which were used to construct descriptive pictures of legitimation.

Despite high-quality initial teacher education (ITE), a notable proportion of newly graduated teachers encounter a stark reality shock upon entering the profession, facing burnout and suboptimal teaching performance. While internships during ITE are often seen as a potential solution to bridge the gap between theory and practice, their effectiveness is questioned. This multiple-case study (N = 38) delves into the ideals and attributes of teacher identities as perceived by preservice teachers in both ITE and internship contexts, with a specific focus on the role of digital technology in education. The interview findings highlight an expectation gap and a susceptibility to succumb to contextual pressures, even within the sheltered environments of internships. This study advocates for closer collaboration between ITE and internship settings to uphold the development of a sound teacher identity and sustain teacher resilience in the increasingly digitalised educational landscape.

We analysed the full text of all journal articles returned to the education subpanel of the 2021 Research Excellence Framework (REF2021). Using a latent Dirichlet allocation topic model, we identified 35 topics that collectively summarise the journal articles that research units, typically schools of education, selected for submission. We found that the topics which units wrote about in their submitted articles collectively explained a large proportion (84.1%) of the variance in the quality assessments they received from the REF's expert peer review process. Further, with the important caveat that we cannot attribute causality, we found that there were strong associations between what the subpanel perceived to be excellent research and the adoption of particular methods or approaches. Most notably, units that returned more interview-based work typically received lower scores, and those which returned more analyses of large-scale data and meta-analyses typically received higher scores. Finally, we applied our 2021 model to articles submitted to the previous exercise, REF2014. We found that education research seems to have become less qualitative and more quantitative over time, and that our 2021 model could successfully predict the scores assigned by the REF2014 subpanel, suggesting a reasonable degree of between-exercise consistency.

Government interventions to address inequalities in education are common in the United Kingdom and internationally. Whilst there is a tendency for policy discourse to focus on benchmarks and indicators as measures of educational success, the inclusiveness and effectiveness of government interventions in education has been questioned. This paper uses the ecological systems perspective as a way of analysing how government interventions may, or may not, lead to real impact on young people's educational outcomes. Two case studies are presented on projects funded as part of the opportunity areas (OA) programme in England to tackle barriers to learning for young people: Ipswich ‘Learning Behaviour Leads’ and Norwich ‘Engagement Coaches’. The research team carried out an evaluation of these projects in seven schools, using a mixed methods approach which involved interviews and reflective journals by the staff delivering the projects (n = 7), interviews with members of the school senior leadership teams (n = 7), an online survey with teachers (n = 23) and focus groups with young people involved in the projects (n = 14). The evaluation found that although there was shared understanding of the purpose and priorities of the OA programme between the macro and exosystems, there were tensions between these and the microsystem, and a lack of interconnection with the mesosystem. Whilst the projects benefited the young people involved, they fell short of the initial intentions to foster engagement amongst the most at-risk groups, and failed to address the macro aims of fostering a pan-system response.

The turn to ‘evidence-based education’ in the past three decades favours one type of evidence: experiment. Knowledge brokers ground recommendations for classroom practice on reports of experimental research. This paper distinguishes field and laboratory experiments, on the basis of control and precision of causal ascription. Briefly noting problems with knowledge brokers’ extrapolating from field experiments, the paper's main focus is on extrapolating from laboratory experiments, using the case of ‘interleaving’. It argues that knowledge brokers often extrapolate from laboratory experiments as if they are field experiments. By considering both laboratory and ‘extra-lab’ interleaving studies, it suggests that an alternative extrapolation—creating laboratory effects in the classroom—has little pedagogical value. The conclusion suggests focussing on mechanisms, contexts and outcomes as a more useful basis for brokering pedagogical knowledge from laboratory experiments.

Pre-service teachers have been identified as a risk group for developing burnout syndromes over the course of their careers due to increased perceived psychological distress and, in particular, if there is a lack of coping strategies. To provide pre-service teachers with appropriate techniques and concepts that can be successfully applied in educational and work contexts, an online positive psychology intervention was designed to improve participants' resilience, in particular their self-efficacy, emotion regulation and ability to cope. Linear mixed models that simultaneously analyse variability between subjects and over time revealed that pre-service teachers who participated in the intervention benefited from the programme with respect to an increase of their emotion regulation strategies, self-efficacy and ability to cope compared to the control group—although at baseline, they exhibited less beneficial emotion regulation, self-efficacy and ability to cope. The findings suggest that such positive psychology interventions could help pre-service teachers build their resilience.

Wellbeing education (WE) is increasingly offered among secondary schools internationally to promote the physical, social, emotional and mental health of young people. Current and emerging evidence proposes that scope exists for the enhancement of universal WE, and that arts-based approaches have significant potential for school programmes in enhancing the effectiveness of WE. This sits alongside a growing body of international literature that connects arts engagement with positive mental wellbeing across age groups. Existing research also shows that the evaluation of the goals, pedagogy and student engagement within WE from the perspectives of teachers is uncommon. To this end, this qualitative research investigated teacher perspectives on the potential for arts-based WE. Through an asynchronous group interview, 10 Australian secondary school arts teachers with expertise in a variety of visual and performing arts education reflected on current WE in light of their arts teaching practice, exploring possibilities for enhancement through art-based practices. Thematic analysis using a socio-ecological framework reveals strong support for arts-based WE, noting positive potential for arts engagement to facilitate increased teacher and student autonomy, relationship building, safe and inclusive environments, and enjoyable, embodied learning within WE.

Equal opportunities in the context of education can be interpreted as ensuring equitable access to certain kinds of education (e.g. an academic track) or as equal opportunities to lead a fulfilling life regardless of the educational route followed (e.g. vocational or academic). These interpretations are in tension: the former implies a hierarchy where some forms of education are considered better than others, whereas the latter requires that they are all considered valuable. This paper presents a case study of a secondary school in the Netherlands that pursued both interpretations of equal opportunities and made systemic reforms to achieve this. Building on interviews, focus groups and participant observation with students, staff and management, the paper analyses the tension these actors experienced between the two interpretations of equal opportunities. It is argued that this stems from a societal context that endorses the first interpretation of equal opportunities but aligns less with the second interpretation. The analysis shows that individual institutions like schools have limited power to shift narratives surrounding educational tracks, especially when these do not align with prevailing trends in society. Additionally, the paper underlines the value of applying analysis of different interpretations of equal opportunities, which is usually undertaken by theoretical work, to empirical data.

In England, a substantial proportion of school inspections are conducted by current school leaders. This may lead to concerns that this gives their school (about 2% of schools) an advantage in the inspection process when it is their turn to be inspected. Yet scant evidence exists on this issue. This paper thus presents the first evidence on this matter, using data obtained via a freedom of information request and linking this with other publicly available information about England's schools. We find that schools where a member of staff also works for Ofsted receive better inspection outcomes than schools without an inspector on their payroll. Our findings nevertheless suggest that other schools may benefit from having access to the training material and professional development opportunities Ofsted provides to its inspectors.

While the individual roles of general cognitive ability and motivation in predicting academic achievement are well established, how they interact with one another and the extent of their combined effect on students' learning outcomes leave much to be explained. The present study investigates the relationships among general cognitive ability, selected motivational constructs (i.e., academic self-efficacy, academic self-concept, self-esteem and student engagement) and academic achievement within a structural model. A total of 346 (M = 52%, F = 48%; M_age = 12.98 ± 0.98) middle school students completed Primary Abilities Test 6–8, Myself as A Learner Scale, Academic Self-Efficacy Scale, School Short-Form of the Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory and Student Engagement Scale. Path analysis revealed that general cognitive ability had a direct effect on academic achievement and significant indirect effects on academic achievement through academic self-efficacy, as well as on student engagement through both academic self-efficacy and academic self-concept. Moreover, academic self-efficacy had significant direct effects on both academic achievement and student engagement. Additionally, self-esteem and academic self-concept had significant direct effects on student engagement, as well as indirect effects on both academic achievement and student engagement through academic self-efficacy. The present study contributes to the understanding of dynamics between cognitive and motivational variables in shaping academic achievement and provides valuable insights for educators and policymakers to develop effective pedagogical designs and strategies for improving student learning outcomes.