Ensuring equal access to a broad and balanced curriculum for all students is a key component of a socially just education system. Yet in England, the freedom that 16-year-old students have to choose the GCSE subjects they study has created divisions in the pathways taken by students from different backgrounds. In 2010, a new accountability…

Drawing on thematic analysis of one-to-one interviews with 85 undergraduate students, this paper offers initial, exploratory analysis of whether known outcome differentials may be partly attributable to students' transition into university. The study is located in the English higher education sector, where fee increases have been accompanied by…

This research was commissioned as part of Inclusive Britain, the government response to the Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities (CRED). The research sought to answer three main questions: (1) Where schools and trusts have closed attainment gaps between pupils from different ethnic groups, has this been the result of a deliberate strategy…

Schools in England have experienced unprecedented disruptions due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. There were two periods during which in-person learning was restricted for the majority of pupils: first for 14 weeks in spring 2020; and then for eight weeks in winter 2021. During these periods of partial closure, many pupils experienced some…

There is a large and long-standing gap in education outcomes between pupils from economically disadvantaged backgrounds and their peers in England (EEF, 2018; Hutchinson et al., 2020). Although there is some evidence of improvement since 2011, the gap has widened recently, largely as a result of school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic…

In a neoliberal era of education, there has been a shift of policy focus to performativity and evidence-based practice, coupled with neoconservative ideology of a more traditional knowledge-led curriculum. The resultant, extant education policy context has received criticism due to its teach to test culture, the concomitant narrowing of curriculum…

White Rose Maths (WRM) commissioned the National Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) to conduct research to explore evidence that suggested a wider COVID-19 attainment gap in schools in Yorkshire and the Humber region in Autumn 2020, to understand the challenges that schools face, and how recovery in the region can best be supported. This…

This paper provides new evidence on educational inequality and reviews the literature on the causes and consequences of unequal education. We document large achievement gaps between children from different socio-economic backgrounds, show how patterns of educational inequality vary across countries, time, and generations, and establish a link…

Despite successive policy interventions, students' socio-economic status continues to strongly predict educational outcomes. Many schools aspire to 'close' this 'gap'. This paper presents an ethnographic study of a group of Primary schools in predominantly white working-class areas in the Midlands of England. Generating ethnographic data through…

Derrick Bell's thesis, that racism is a permanent feature of society, is frequently misrepresented by detractors as signaling a view of racism as monolithic--bold, obvious, and unchanging. This paper argues that critical race theory [CRT] reveals a very different understanding of racism as relentless, yet fluid, and quick to morph depending on…

This study concerned an action research project undertaken within a mainstream 11-18 secondary school with a high proportion of pupil premium students in the north of England. Pupil premium is a grant given by the government to schools in England to decrease the attainment gap for the most disadvantaged children, whether by income or by family…

The study uses data from five assessment points for reading and maths. It focuses on a constant sample of students, all of whom completed a Rising Stars assessment in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The study also administered three teacher surveys: the first focused on the initial period of lockdown, the second focused on the autumn 2020…

The paper investigates practitioners' perspectives on the Early Years Pupil Premium (EYPP) and its use for looked after children (LAC) in England. The paper considers what practitioners in one Local Authority (LA) think now that the funding has passed its infancy. Specifically, does EYPP funding help 'close the gap' for LAC? Q-methodology was used…

A child's early years play a significant role in determining their chances later on in life, including their chances of social mobility. But the poorest children are already 11 months behind their peers when they start at primary school, with efforts to close the gap stalling, and evidence that the gap has started to widen once again in recent…

In opposition to the discourse of silent compliance and the neo-liberal colonisation of voice, this article shares research with parents in an English primary school. Drawing on the work of Jacques Rancière and John Macmurray, the author argues that there is a need for a more relational but dissensual approach to parent engagement and voice,…