This report provides key findings from a two part research project funded by the Sutton Trust and the London School of Economics & Political Science, (LSE) focusing on secondary school admissions in England. The research analyses secondary schools' admissions criteria and practices in England in 2012/13 and illustrative examples of how some…

Drawing on findings from an ethnographic study of Romani Gypsy groups in England (1996-2000), along with data from follow-up work involving original and additional participants (2005-ongoing), this paper explores several ethical issues that arose. It traces developing relationships across a 13-year period, identifying the problems of attempting to…

Transitions of young people from school to employment, further education or training have been a focus of government policy in the UK for at least the last three decades. Since the late 1990s, numerous policy initiatives have been introduced by New Labour in an attempt to reduce social exclusion through the increased participation of young people…

This article presents a model of teacher research supported by academic partners to develop a better understanding of the barriers to education faced by young people growing up in poverty. It critiques politicians' demands for teachers to "close the gap" for ignoring the cumulative intergenerational effects of deprivation. The authors…

This small-scale pilot research project investigates the prevalence of Speech Language and Communication Difficulties in a sample of children attending a Youth Offending Service in the UK. Using the CELF-4, approximately 90% of the sample displayed some form of language difficulty and, overall, this population displayed mild to moderate…

This article describes an action research project carried out in North West England that aimed to assist Children's Services Departments and Care Trusts in developing their strategies for supporting care leavers into employment and training. The study found a range of models and approaches that can be utilised to develop local and regional…

This paper describes and evaluates an action research project carried out by a teacher in an English comprehensive school, where a class of 13- to 14-year-olds was taught personal, social and health education and German through content-language integrated learning (CLIL) over a six-week period. The purpose of the study was to explore how CLIL…

People frequently hear competing media and research claims about the educational value of new technologies. But too often it is not clear how, if at all, these technologies are supporting learning. And there is not enough attention paid to the challenges of trying to introduce these technologies successfully into an educational context. To what…

Many lecturers find that teaching and research compete for their time. However, teaching and research can be linked closely together, and there are many ways of linking the two. This article will consider how research can be incorporated into teaching through a case study in Linguistics at Nottingham Trent University (in the United Kingdom), where…

The changing economic, social, cultural and technological circumstances in which children live impact significantly on the ways in which early childhood is both viewed and experienced. Understanding the implications, the potentials, the challenges that arise as a consequence of the diversity and technological changes that characterise contemporary…

This paper describes the findings of a one-year collaborative research project funded by the Standing Conference on Teacher Education North and South (SCoTENS). The paper is derived from a Short Report on this study prepared for SCoTENS on 16th May 2012. The study examined the role of physical education (PE) teachers as mentors to new members of…

In our diverse and interconnected world, expanding students' horizons beyond the classrooms and laboratories of home campuses is increasingly important. Even some of the brightest honors students remain naïve to the causes and ramifications of current world events and lack the necessary intercultural skills to become effective ethical leaders with…

The Researching Academies (RA) Conference, hosted by the University of Gloucestershire in Cheltenham on 12 November 2008 and organised by the authors, was a unique one-day event, funded as part of a research project (a case study of an Academy) supported by a British Academy (BA) grant, with additional support and funding from BELMAS. The RA…

This article examines the growth of practitioner research in England through the creation of the Learning and Skills Research Network (LSRN) and identifies its effect on subsequent developments in what is generally known as the Lifelong Learning Sector (LLS). It offers an analysis of this development as a case study in developing practitioner…

This contribution explores what it means to pursue equality and social justice through equitable and just collaborative research methodologies, with a particular focus on two issues: the creation of safe spaces for research participants in the context of a "dangerous" research topic, and the generation of ethically viable research…