Written nearly 40 years ago, Peter Medway's "Finding a Language" continues to be an arresting read, which offers a powerful vision of what might be possible in education. In this brief introduction, I set the work in context, referring to ideas that Pete engaged with and recalling a little of the times.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to report on a study aimed at understanding the different conceptions that University of Northampton teachers hold of "Changemaker", an institutional initiative to develop capacities for social innovation. Design/methodology/approach: The study took a phenomenographic approach to identify a small…

The School of Cultures, Languages and Area Studies at the University of Nottingham hosted the fifth annual conference in the "Innovative Language Teaching at University" series. Under the heading "Enhancing participation and collaboration" the conference, organised by Cecilia Goria, Oranna Speicher and Sascha Stollhans, took…

There is a large literature on the productivity of universities. Little is known, however, about how different types of leader affect a university's later performance. By constructing a new longitudinal data set, I provide evidence that the research quality of a university improves after it appoints a president (vice chancellor) who is an…

Reports on the first phase of a study of the experiences of university faculty (n=221) in the United Kingdom who introduced innovations in teaching and learning. Suggests that the reasons which motivated these largely individual innovators may not be sufficient to involve other staff in the change process given the risks involved and lack of…

Whatever happens in 2020, schools and teachers will be very different. The teachers in training now, and those currently teaching, need to be prepared to be flexible, to manage change, and more than that, to be agents of change. Those 18-year-olds currently entering training began school in 1991; they are truly National Curriculum babies and, the…

In New South Wales as for other Australian colonies, the achievement of mainly free, compulsory and secular public education systems in the 1870s was a cause of self- satisfaction and a belief that late nineteenth-century Australian public schools were among the best in the world. In this paper, the process by which this self-satisfaction was…

The progress of action research (as an innovation) can be viewed productively from a socio-politico-cultural perspective. Utilizing this perspective, the institutional impact of action research is discussed. (IAH)

After issuing a flood of missives about education during its time in office, the Government is now actively encouraging the exploitation of creativity and offering schools the opportunity to be more flexible in their interpretation and teaching of the curriculum. This apparent change of heart has left school leaders and classroom practitioners…