Education In UK Research Articles

A Study on the Characteristics of Real Estate Education in Korean Universities through Text Mining-based Curriculum Analysis

Text mining is a method of analyzing text data to derive the characteristics or status of a described object. Since an educational program's curriculum reflects the content and goals it aims to teach, text analysis of the curriculum can reveal the characteristics of the program. This study employs text mining techniques to analyze the curricula of real estate education programs at Korean universities and proposes strategies for future development. The paper presents three main findings: First, by analyzing the curricula of universities in the UK and US that offer real estate education, the study identifies the unique characteristics of each country’s approach, reaffirming previously identified differences between them. Second, real estate education at Korean universities features an eclectic curriculum that incorporates elements of both UK and US real estate education, resulting in diverse curricular offerings across institutions. Lastly, for individual Korean universities, the study provides guidelines for the development of their departmental education by indicating which UK or US universities have the most similar or different curricula.

‘You should not be that good in week three:’ what can Strictly Come Dancing tell us about feedback and performativity in UK education policy?

The past decades have seen a plethora of TV reality talent shows emerge. The viewing population likes nothing more than seeing a ‘class’ of bakers, sewers, potters or dancers develop their skills and face the scrutiny of judges before being whittled down to a winner. The popularity of these shows says something about the national psyche but, aside from the entertainment value, may also carry conceptions of teaching, learning, assessment and feedback. By applying a metalinguistic thematic analysis to judges’ feedback, this paper seeks to examine how one UK show in particular, ‘ Strictly Come Dancing,’ presents feedback and, using a feedback framework, how this is understood. This feedback framework is notable for the links made to self-regulation, an area that continues to influence UK education policy. This paper will argue that when popular TV shows such as Strictly Come Dancing are viewed through a pedagogical lens, they reveal models of feedback which are not necessarily valued. Furthermore, analysis reveals the spectacle of normalised and broader educational neoliberalism policy reflected back at us.

Education Policy and Social Justice: A Policy Framework Analysis for Improving Educational Opportunities for Marginalized Groups

Educational inequality remains a pervasive issue, particularly for marginalized groups such as low-income families, immigrants, and ethnic minorities. Despite various educational reforms, current policies often fail to fully address the disparities faced by these populations. This paper critically examines the role of education policy in promoting social justice, focusing on how existing policies can either perpetuate or mitigate inequities in access and outcomes. Drawing on a comprehensive policy analysis framework, this study analyzes current UK education policies, comparing them with international best practices to identify key gaps and areas for improvement. The findings reveal significant shortcomings in resource distribution, support systems for marginalized students, and accountability mechanisms. Based on these findings, the paper proposes a refined policy framework that incorporates principles of redistributive, recognition, and participatory justice, offering actionable recommendations for policymakers. This research highlights the urgent need for a more equitable approach to education policy, ensuring that marginalized groups are not left behind in the pursuit of educational opportunity and success.

Changing education landscapes and (in)equality in Wales: An exploration of barriers to tertiary education using linked UK Census and education data

ObjectiveThe Wales Commission for Tertiary Education and Research (CTER) was created in 2024 to oversee a complex system of training and education for adults and young people. The objective of our research was to examine demographic features that prevent or encourage engagement with education after formal schooling, that can be used to inform future CTER strategies. ApproachThis research considered the personal and family characteristics of learners, and evaluated differentials between characteristics in terms of enrolment, progression/exit and completion in different tertiary education settings (Sixth Forms, Further Education, and Higher Education). Using novel data linkages across 5 different data sources, we used household characteristics from the UK Census 2011 to help contextualise the experiences of learners and explore the manifestation of inequalities in the tertiary education system. ResultsThe results indicated that inequities were apparent. Gender, Special Education Needs (SEN) status, and household characteristics including disability, deprivation, socio-economic, occupational and education status’ created barriers to continued engagement in education post schooling. Conclusions and ImplicationsThe complex and disparate nature of data collections was highlighted by the research, whilst the findings offer areas and characteristics that CTER should consider when creating new initiatives or governance systems for the tertiary education sector in Wales in order to reduce persistent inequalities. Recommendations for CTER that were drawn from the research included: 1) a more cohesive approach to data collection across the tertiary sector, and 2) strategies should assess impacts for those experiencing multiple forms of disadvantage.

Student academic representation in the UK: An exploration of recruitment, training, and impacts

AbstractStudent academic representation is a staple feature in UK and international higher education. It provides a vital quality function whereby students, who are elected representatives of their programme, canvas the opinions of peers to inform quality assurance processes. In the UK, there is increasing regulatory pressure for universities and student unions to be dual owners of representation activity and much work has been done to enact this model. Nonetheless, little is known about the experiences of those serving as student representatives, despite this being a community of thousands of students across the UK, who hold an instrumental position in institutional quality assurance. We developed an instrument (SARA) to evaluate experiences of 773 active student representatives from 15 UK HE institutions. It explored key areas, including recruitment, training, working approaches and development outcomes. Data indicated low engagement in training in some key areas (e.g., representation of diverse groups and data gathering) and a narrow range of working approaches. These patterns may compromise the value of student representation both from the institutional perspective and that of individual representatives seeking to enhance their skills. Recommendations are suggested for enhancing future practice.

The Googlization of the classroom: Is the UK effective in protecting children's data and rights?

There has been an explosion in uses of educational technology (EdTech) to support schools’ teaching, learning, assessment and administration. This article asks whether UK EdTech and data protection policies protect children's rights at school. It adopts a children's rights framework to explore how EdTech impacts children's rights to education, privacy and freedom from economic exploitation, taking Google Classroom as a case study. The research methods integrate legal research, interviews with UK data protection experts and education professionals working at various levels from national to local, and a socio-technical investigation of the flow of children's data through Google Classroom. The findings show that Google Classroom undermines children's privacy and data protection, potentially infringing children's other rights. However, they also show that regulation has impacted on Google's policy and practice. Specifically, we trace how various governments’ deployment of a range of legal arguments has enabled them to regulate Google's relationship with schools to improve its treatment of children's data. Although the UK government has not brought such actions, the data flow investigation shows that Google has also improved its protection of children's data in UK schools as a result of these international actions. Nonetheless, multiple problems remain, due both to Google's non-compliance with data protection regulations and schools’ practices of using Google Classroom. We conclude with a blueprint for the rights-respecting treatment of children's education data that identifies needed actions for the UK Department for Education, data protection authority, and industry, to mitigate against harmful practices and better support schools.

Accessibility and specialization in the work of Michael Young

ABSTRACT Michael Young’s work has had a significant influence over UK education in recent years, both at a school and policy level, although, as Young’s contribution to this symposium notes, it has often been prone to misinterpretation. In this response, it will be argued that the work Young describes in his paper can be understood as part of a broader attempt to address three very real problems faced by teachers in their day to day practice: the problems of expertise, accessibility and motivation. Where the development of Young’s thinking since the 1970s is often characterized as a ‘turn’, the continuity between his earlier and later work will be highlighted. In the latter part of the response, Young’s use of the word ‘specialized’ will be analysed in order to highlight some of the conceptual confusion that remains around the process of specialization. It will be argued that the clearing up of such confusion is of crucial importance if Young’s vision of all students having access to specialized knowledge is to be realized.

Uncovering the landscape of cross-national UK education research: an exploratory review

ABSTRACT Background Internationally, research comparing education systems across countries and jurisdictions is valuable and can elicit nuanced insights into how particular systems operate. This paper’s interest lies in considering the scope and content of research comparing education systems across the four UK nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales). Purpose This study sought to determine the coverage of UK cross-national comparative education research (‘home international’ research) between 2000 and 2022. We chose this time period as 1999 marks the devolution of education policy to each UK nation. We aimed to investigate what educational issues had been discussed in the literature and identify any gaps in the content covered by the research. Method An exploratory, high-level review of ‘home international’ education research was conducted, based on the review of abstracts. We searched several research databases using a variety of keyword combinations to identify relevant literature published since 2000. Our search identified 53 studies that met our selection criteria. Using a meta-synthesis approach, we coded the content of each abstract to build a picture of the range and thematic coverage of research involving comparisons between at least two of the four UK nations. Findings The analysis of abstracts identified that, over the last two decades, UK ‘home international’ research has tended to include comparisons of all four nations, coverage of multiple educational phases and a focus on national education policy reviews. Furthermore, we pinpointed a number of gaps in coverage that might not have been anticipated (e.g. relatively little cross-national research focusing on assessment). Conclusion This high-level review uncovers the landscape of recent ‘home international’ research, allowing us to view issues that are driving the cross-national research agenda in the UK and recognise implications relevant to education systems that may resonate with jurisdictions beyond these four UK nations.

Exploring the persistence of adults on secondary education courses: occupational status, satisfaction and self-efficacy as key factors

One of the most worrying issues in Spanish education is the high school dropout rate, especially for those students who leave compulsory secondary education with no qualifications. Some of these students re-enter the system via adult education centres (AECs), where they can obtain the minimum qualification required by the labour market (the Secondary Education Graduate Certificate, the equivalent of GCSE in UK education). Entry into and adaptation to the AECs was explored in a non-probabilistic sample of 234 individuals from a total population of 2033 enrolled in 14 Catalan AECs, and the roles of a range of factors in shaping successful trajectories were analysed. The aim was to contribute to the design of strategies boosting students’ well-being and raising the probability of their persisting in their studies. The results showed that when study was full-time or combined with a part-time job of half a day or fewer working hours, when there was high academic satisfaction with the centre, and when there was a feeling of empowerment and efficacy in studying, the bond to the centre and the will to continue studying there were enhanced.

Investigating Ofsted’s inclusion of cultural capital in early years inspections

In 2019 Ofsted introduced cultural capital (CC) into the Early Years Inspection Handbook and defined it as ‘essential knowledge’ related to ‘educated citizenship’. This paper investigates Ofsted’s use of CC to critically examine the potential implications for early years work. Due to the feminised nature of early years work, a critical feminist approach is engaged to explore the potential impact of introducing CC into the regulation of the sector. This paper examines the differences between Ofsted’s use of CC, CC’s theoretical origins, and analyses sector responses. Our contention is that how Ofsted have employed CC may represent ‘symbolic violence’ against the working-class women working in the early years, by further devaluing their habitus and sustaining the stratification of society through forms of capital. This paper is the first to interrogate CC in Ofsted’s early years documentation, and will have an international impact for any countries following UK education practices.

Applying the power threat meaning framework to the UK education system

ABSTRACT The Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF; Johnstone & Boyle, 2018a, 2018b) has fundamentally changed both the practice of clinical psychology and the understanding of mental health since its conception in 2018. However, to date the PTMF (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018a, 2018b) has had little application to other contexts, despite being of clear relevance. Once such absence of application is to the educational context. The context of power within education has been outlined before by philosophers such as Michel Foucault, however, the PTMF (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018a, 2018b) elaborates further about how negative power operations create threat and therefore lead to responses of psychological distress. Thus, the PTMF (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018a, 2018b) could elaborate on Foucault’s theories and offer more understanding on the role of power and psychological distress in the field of education. Therefore, this paper will seek to outline the PTMF (Johnstone & Boyle, 2018a, 2018b) and highlight the ways in which the PTMF can apply to education through reference to the school structure, teachers, parents and students.

Exploring contract cheating in further education: student engagement and academic integrity challenges

ABSTRACT Contract cheating is a challenging problem facing higher and further education providers (HE and FE) worldwide. In the UK, contract cheating has been identified as a growing problem by the HEA and, more recently, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education and the Department for Education. The high rate of contact cheating among students suggests that 8–9% of degrees awarded in the UK are unsafe. To address this issue, the current study with a new approach seeks to investigate student’s motivations, experiences, and rationale for using contract cheating from their point of view. Collected data has been subjected to content analysis and the findings show different phases and drivers in this process. This study will help increase awareness among UK academics and education providers about the processes involved in contract cheating and propose a set of recommendations for the future.

Raising awareness isn’t enough: The role of the psychology of education in disability-related justice and inclusion in primary classrooms

What:Regarding education, disability inequality is arguably a structural and systemic issue. The social model of disability, enshrined in teacher education programs in the UK, espouses the ways in which school environments, rather than disabled children themselves, need to adapt and change. However, the role of psychology in addressing disability-related systemic injustice is less clear. The aim of this paper is to consider the potential role of the psychology of education in working towards disability justice in schools.Why?Many inclusive teacher-education programmes set out the ways in which environments may be created to include disabled children. Psychologists have focused on disabled children’s needs to access and participate in the classroom, but often do not consider their exclusion in social model terms, from curriculum materials, classroom displays, or material culture more generally. Favazza and colleagues (e.g. 2017) now offer a sizeable body of research showing that disability representation in school classrooms is negligible. This lack of representation is reflected among the staff in the teaching profession, where the 2016 census suggests that 0.5% of English teaching staff declared a disability (DfE, 2017), and more recent census data show that disability data were not collected (DfE, 2023a). It is this lack of representation of disabled people and its possible psychological underpinnings that this paper addresses.How?This paper uses social and affirmative model lenses to (a) explore the ways in which disability may be seen as a structural inequality in contemporary UK education and (b) suggest ways in which researchers and practitioners in the Psychology of Education may work towards disability justice. This may be achieved by considering extant research practice and through research focusing on the perceptions of and attitudes towards disability, alongside existing psychological work that focuses on disabled children’s individual needs.

The Influence of UK Education on Chinese Primary English Teaching through a Cultural Education Perspective

As the present-day lingua franca, English is increasingly becoming more critical. Schools worldwide have adopted measures to teach non-native students English as part of their national curriculum to provide students with a broader range of opportunities in the global market. This paper investigates the current emergent problems in the Chinese teaching methodology and analyzes the UK teaching methods to seek possible Western solutions. This paper mainly focuses on the English classes taught at primary schools in the UK and China to explore this cross-cultural communication difference. The study will first raise awareness of these problems affecting students, which include a lack of motivation, poor language knowledge, and a poor language environment. Having established the main concerns and better understanding of the broader teaching spectrum, the study will make possible modifications to the traditional Chinese teaching of second language learners.

From Looking to Learning: Working with and for Young Black Women in Systems of Whiteness

ABSTRACTIn this paper, I explore both the need and possibility for liberatory work with and in service of young Black women within two systems of Whiteness. First, I discuss a process of exclusion experienced by a group of young women in their inner-London 6th form college: namely being constructed as hypervisible and hypersexual, and subsequently being erased from sight within spaces connected to the college’s public image. I discuss this with reference to a neoliberal framework that insidiously sustains norms of Whiteness in increasingly marketised school settings. I also extend critical analysis to the research process itself, uncovering parallel processes of silencing and stereotyping, with reference to understandings of Whiteness as structurally violent yet invisiblised acts of looking. Crucially, however, I also explore the potential for resistance within these systems. Drawing on Black feminist pedagogical frameworks, I discuss the possibility for co-created spaces in which young Black women’s cultural practices and forms of knowledge take centre-stage. I ultimately find how forms of ‘dancing with’ and ‘listening to’ can serve as important practices of (un)learning for White teachers and/or researchers, specifically within UK schools and education research.

Comparing the Secondary Education in UK with the High School Education in China

In modern society, education belongs to a highly developed stage, and Chinas education is also constantly developing and improving. High school education in China has always been a focus of social concern, and so far, exam-oriented education still dominates high school education. Compared with the secondary education in the UK, there are significant differences in the types of high school education in China, as well as in the educational models and historical backgrounds of development. In China, high school education has developed over a comparatively short span of time, and through comparison, it was found that there are some problems in current high school education. In order to change the current situation of high school education in China, the Chinese government has proposed the concept of quality education and the dual reduction policy, which requires continuous efforts to ultimately be implemented. Teachers need to change teaching methods, improve teaching concepts, promote and help students increase confidence, enhance cooperation and innovation abilities. Students should also make independent changes, diverge their thinking, use dialectical methods to see problems, and think about multiple aspects of the problem, in order to improve their logical thinking ability and innovative cooperation ability, and maintain a positive attitude towards learning.

The place for diagnosis in the UK education system?

ABSTRACT Currently, the number of students in the UK with diagnoses of mental health or psychiatric conditions is rising, as are the number of students categorised as having a special educational need or disability (SEND). To support these students’ objective evidence of deficit or difficulty is required, this usually takes the form of a legitimising diagnosis. However, in the case of mental health conditions, social, emotional and behavioural problems or even in some neurodevelopmental disorders, diagnosis is less useful as there are fundamental problems with the classification and understanding of mental health conditions. Despite this, the prevalence and importance of diagnosis remains in supporting students in education and those who are categorised as SEND. Therefore, this paper seeks to discuss the place that diagnosis has in education and the alternative models that exist in an effort to understand potential other avenues of supporting students and the benefits and limitations of these.

Vulnerable narcissistic leadership meets Covid-19: the relationship between vulnerable narcissistic leader behaviour and subsequent follower irritation

ABSTRACT Leaders’ vulnerable narcissism may cause followers irritation due to its antagonistic and neurotic nature. Based on conservation of resources theory, we propose and test a model of between-person and reciprocal within-person relations between weekly experiences of vulnerable narcissistic leader behaviours (VNLB) and followers’ irritation in subsequent weeks. We argue that in time of crisis and uncertainty, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdowns related to it, VNLB adds to follower irritation. We drew a sample from a population affected by workplace uncertainty, that is, the UK education sector during the first weeks of the Covid pandemic (N = 159). Five weeks of longitudinal data were collected. We conducted a random intercepts cross-lagged panel model and separated within- from between-person sources of variance in VNLB and follower irritation. Our findings show that VNLB positively related to follower irritation at the between-person level. The relationships at the within-person level of analysis were less clear. Experiences of VNLB resulted in follower irritation in subsequent weeks for some of the time lags, but not for others. We find limited indicators for a reciprocal relationship between VNLB and irritation. We discuss implications and link our findings to the study context of COVID-19 pandemic.

Re/Definitions of teachers and teaching work in UK and US policy discourses under Covid-19 and their implications for social justice

ABSTRACT This article is concerned with the discourses of teachers and teaching work that have circulated in UK and US education policy circles during the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on UK and US policy texts published in Spring and Summer 2020, we discuss how the policy discourses underpinning these texts re/define and mis/recognise teaching work. On a theoretical level, the article bears on a poststructuralist tradition calling, inter alia, for a critical deconstruction of discourses and the relationships of power they sustain, while also borrowing from critical theorists’ understandings of social justice. We argue that while some aspects of teachers’ work have attracted more visibility and recognition, these processes have been partial and coexist with the strengthening of some of the hierarchies of teaching work in place prior to the pandemic.

The exploration and research of family education in the context of Chinese culture

Family education is highly valued in China, both at the national level and locally, in individual families. As a result, the state encourages schools, kindergartens, and communities to hold regular public lectures on family education. In addition, over recent generations Chinese parents have gradually reduced their control over their children and given them more autonomy. This has resulted in Chinese parents’ views on education becoming more closely aligned to those in the West. This article discusses this evolving situation from the perspective of a Chinese early-years educator, who also draws on personal experience of the UK education system.