Dr Edward Kessler, University of Cambridge, gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series on 7th November 2016. Religion and belief are driving forces in society today. Although there is some divergence of opinion over the extent, there is unanimity that the UK is becoming less Christian, less religious and more diverse. Dr Ed Kessler, Vice Chairman of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, will discuss the implications of the dramatic changes in...

Professor Simon Marginson, ULC Institute of Education, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series. This seminar returns to a long-standing issue in the literature on higher education systems, that of the relationship, if any, between diversity (horizontal differentiation based on variation in HEI mission, organisational cultures, educational practices etc), the growth of participation levels, and marketisation. The classical American literature suggested that...

Professor Tony Gallagher, University of Belfast, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series on 24th October 2016. Mass education has traditionally been used as an integrating force, perhaps most notably in the role of the public school in the United States. In the latter part of the 20th century overt assimilation through education was increasingly critiqued and attention shifted towards the incorporation of various forms of multiculturalism in schools. In some...

Dr Therese N Hopfenbeck, Department of Education, Oxford, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series on 17th October 2016. Co-written with Dr Jenny Lenkeit More information is available here; http://oucea.education.ox.ac.uk/research/recent-research-projects/pirls-for-teachers/ There is a knowledge gap between information provided by international large-scale assessments (ILSA) such as PIRLS, PISA, and TIMSS, the publically available research results and what is of...

This lecture discusses the development of various measures of students experiences and views of their secondary schools based on self report questionnaires taken at ages 14 & 16. Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 UK: England & Wales; http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/uk/

Professor Leonidas Kyriakides, Department of Education, University of Cyprus, gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series. This lecture refers to the dynamic approach to school improvement (DASI) which attempts to contribute to the merging of educational effectiveness research and school improvement. The main underlying assumptions and the implementation phases of DASI are presented. The recommended approach gives emphasis to school policies and actions taken to improve...

Dr Ann Childs, Dr Nigel Fancourt, Dr Roger Firth, Professor Ian Menter and Dr Ian Thompson, Department of Education, Oxford, give a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar series. Abstract: During 2012, the National College for Teaching and Leadership, working in collaboration with a number of partners, designed a major research and development initiative entitled Closing the Gap - Test and Learn. The contract to run the project was awarded to CfBT who worked in partnership with...

Professor David Putwain (Edge Hill University) gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series. A relatively common motivational strategy used by teachers, and others, prior to high-stakes examinations (such as the GCSE), is to communicate to students the negative consequence of failure for one’s subsequent life trajectory. This could include access to subsequent forms of education and training, entry to the labour market, and the impact on one’s sense of self-worth. When...

Seminar looking at education in Sudan and other North African countries. This seminar examines the development of a National Learning Assessment in Sudan and reports on the findings of its first study. We know that National Learning Assessments can play an important role in demonstrating the efficiency of investments in education, help governments to monitor the effectiveness of educational interventions and policies, and address issues related to equity and to provision. It is largely...

Professor Neil Selwyn, Professor in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminars series. This seminar explores the ways in which digital technologies are now implicated in teachers’ work and labour. Drawing upon in-depth ethnographic studies of three Australian high schools, Neil will detail the ways in which teachers’ work is now enacted along digital lines – often in notably intensified, standardized and evidenced ways. However,...

Professor Geoff Lindsay, University of Warwick, gives a talk for the department of education public seminar series. Abstract: 'In this talk I shall draw upon two large scale studies of parenting programmes to explore two issues: evidence for their effectiveness, and implications for policy and practice. The Parenting Early Intervention Programme (2006-11) examined targeted parenting programmes, aimed at parents of children exhibiting or at risk of behavioural difficulties; the CANparent...

Professor Jo-Anne Baird, Department of Education, gives a talk for the Department of Education Seminar series on 19th October 2015. Co-written by Professor David Andrich. Introduced by Dr Therese Hopfenbeck. Educational assessments define what it means to have learned and therefore have a huge impact upon teaching and learning. However, there is remarkably little connection between research and theory on learning and on educational assessment. Given the voluminous assessment that takes place...

Prof. Harry Daniels & Hau Ming Tse present an account of ways in which the discourses and practices of school design produce educational spaces which mediate and shape the discourses and practices of teaching and learning when the building is occupied.

A public seminar from the Department of Education, given by Dr Susan James Relly, Assistant Director of SKOPE. Over recent years UK governments have expanded higher education and with it the supply of graduates. This expansion is linked to social mobility through meritocracy. However, the number of traditionally graduate jobs has not increased in line with higher education expansion. One result of this policy is graduates entering not just graduate jobs but non-graduate jobs. Using...

How can we help students move from being novices to proficient apprentices to experts in the domain? Emeritis Professor of Education, Professor Gordon Stobart, lectures on the international policy rhetoric surrounding the need for 21st century learning. In this the learner is seen as flexible, self regulating and able to work collaboratively solve problems - the skills needed to meet the demands of a an ever changing labour market. At the same time we have standards and accountability...

This study investigated the predictability of the Leaving Certificate examination in Ireland, where public accusations of predictable exams are of serious concern. The data combined survey responses of students' views of the examination, learning strategies, and learning support with examination results.

A public seminar from the Department of Education, given by Professor Janet Boddy, University of Sussex and Professor Donald Forrester, University of Bedfordshire. Professor Janet Boddy will talk about the European Perspectives on Outcomes and Everyday Lives for Young People in Care project. Transitions to adulthood for young people in and after care are a priority in child welfare research internationally, not least because of concern across countries about poor outcomes relative to the...

A public seminar from the Department of Education, given by Dr Neil Mercer, University of Cambridge. In recent years, researchers in evolutionary psychology and anthropology have proposed that we have evolved with “social brains” that enable us to manage complex social relationships. Research in neuroscience also encourages the view that humans have a distinctively social form of intelligence. I suggest that the concept of the social brain is potentially useful for understanding the dynamic,...

Niall discusses emerging findings from the ESRC/DFID­funded project "mCHW: a mobile  learning intervention for community health workers”. ...

A public seminar from the Department of Education, given by Dr Melanie Ehren, senior lecturer at the London Centre for Leadership and Learning. School inspections are assumed to have a great impact on what students learn and how they learn it but the intermediate steps between inspection and eventual student learning outcomes are vague. It remains largely unclear how these various levers of change employed by inspectorates interact with each other to influence schools and whether particular...

A public seminar from the Department of Education, given by Professor Hugh Lauder, University of Bath. Human capital theory has dominated the understanding of the relationship of education to work. It has retained plausibility until now due to the social context in which it was articulated. But that context has now changed, radically. It is now exposed as a fundamentally flawed account of the education-economy relationship, theoretically and empirically. This seminar will explain why that is...

Department of Education Public Seminar delivered by Professor Theodoros Marinis on sequential bilingual children. The seminar will look...

This talk by Prof. Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics, reflects on a recent ethnographic study of a year 9 class – researched at school and at home over an academic year. We have been particularly interested in asking how young people perceive and respond to the demands made of them by school and family. How do they conceive of the place and purpose of learning, and the value of home or community? Do digitally mediated activities and networks enable or impede young people’s...

This seminar presentation traces the emergence of postmodernist models of higher education institutions (HEIs) from Clark Kerr’s 1963 idea of the American multiversity to Zygmunt Bauman’s more recent notion of the postmodern university.