Private tutoring is a growing industry globally. Past research into the effectiveness of private tutoring has proved inconclusive. Studies dedicated to the non-academic implications of private tutoring are scarce. Using a mixed-method approach, our study examined A-Level students' experiences of private tutoring and their perceptions of benefits…

A wealth of evidence shows that exposure to the natural environment and nature-based learning can benefit children's physical, mental, social, and emotional health. Despite this, children are spending less time in nature and nature-based learning remains an underutilised pedagogical tool. Several barriers are frequently reported by teachers,…

This article reports on a case study exploring the social positioning and identities of South Asian and Muslim girls in one British inner city secondary school. The analysis is situated within the context of 'everyday multiculturalism', a framework which provides a lens on racialized and gendered encounters in the school context. Whilst their…

The author presents the result of a quantitative survey as a part of a larger mixed-methods study conducted across two case study schools in urban Jamaica. It focuses on Black Caribbean boys' levels of educational aspirations in relation to their economic, social, and embodied cultural capital. The study utilizes Bourdieu's notions of capital,…

Through a focused discussion on literature and the reading of texts, this essay explores the cultures and histories students bring into the classroom. I investigate how students approach school and home literacies. At the heart of this research is (some) Muslim male students' perception of reading and literacy, their sense of what English is and…

A meta-analysis was undertaken, including 66 studies, to determine the relationship between father involvement and the educational outcomes of urban school children. Statistical analyses were done to determine the overall impact and specific components of father involvement. The possible differing effects of paternal involvement by race were also…

This article reports the outcomes of a project in which teachers' sought to develop their ability to use instructional practices associated with argumentation in the teaching of science--in particular, the use of more dialogic approach based on small group work and the consideration of ideas, evidence, and argument. The project worked with four…

Against a background of increasing student eligibility for "access arrangements" in examinations for the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE), this article examines the processes within schools that structure a student's access to the provision of reading support, including staff and student viewpoints. Dominic Griffiths,…

Help-seeking among young people is complicated, often determined vicariously by the ability of adults, family or professionals, to recognize, and respond to, their difficulties. We know very little about the complex concerns of teenage young people and how they impact on help-seeking preferences. We aimed to ascertain the help-seeking preferences…

Commonsense understandings of school practices have historically painted parents of color as inattentive and non-participatory actors in public school settings. Racist implementations of policy and individual actions, based on teacher ideology and deficit paradigms of race, force parents of color to take an oppositional stance in public school…

This paper proposes a new model for understanding education through "responsible leadership"--a term which draws on the models of distributed and authentic leadership and on a dialogic understanding of responsible action. It defines "dispositions for learning" as different forms of the single quality of "openness to…

The National Challenge, whereby all secondary schools had to attain 5 A*--Cs by 2011, was launched in June 2008. In this article, Richard Riddell outlines the main provisions of the National Challenge, which he characterizes as shallow, mechanistic and playing an old "performativity" tune. Although the new benchmark will be achieved by…

This article reports data from a 2-year longitudinal study on cooperative learning in school science. The study reported the effects of cooperative learning in science on science attainment, effective development and social connectedness, and interactions during transition from elementary to high school in rural and urban school settings. The…

What and how much can children learn without subject teachers? In an attempt to find a limit to self organized learning, we explored the capacity of 10-14 year old Tamil-speaking children in a remote Indian village to learn basic molecular biology, initially on their own with a Hole-in-the-Wall public computer facility, and later with the help of…

This study describes the language and literacy skills of 11-year-olds attending a mainstream school in an area of social and economic disadvantage. The proportion of these young people experiencing difficulties in decoding and reading comprehension was identified and the relationship between spoken language skills and reading comprehension…