Engagement and Events

Seminar series: Education Policy and Research in International Perspective.

This 杏吧论坛 online seminar series bringing together scholars from across the world who are working in the fields of education policy and education research. The series is aimed particularly at colleagues who have an interest in discussing education policy and research from a comparative and international perspective. We welcome contributions from a range of different disciplines and methodological traditions.

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Autumn Term series

7 October, 15.00-16.00

Bureaucratic Selection and Politics: Evidence from Teachers in Brazil

Speaker: Dr Emmerich Davies (Brown University)

28 October, 15.00-16.00

The Influence of National Contexts on the Population Education Transition (PET) Curve: A Look at the Education-Chronic Disease Gradient

Speaker: Dr William C Smith (University of Edinburgh)

11 November, 15.00-16.00

Who Polarises? Who Targets? Parties’ Educational Speech over the Long Run

Speaker: Professor Jane Gingrich (University of Oxford)

9 December, 15.00-16.00

Reparations in the Ruins of Development

Speaker: Professor Arathi Sripakash (University of Oxford)

Crisis narratives as an instrument of the global governance of education

21 May 2024

Speaker: , Senior Lecturer in International Education, King's College London.

This presentation will examine the use of crisis narratives in the history of international organizations (IOs), with a focus on how they served to legitimize a re-ordering of the architecture of the global governance of education since the end of World War II to the present time. The paper will critically analyse three historical examples/periods, with the aim of showing how crisis narratives have been deployed not only to achieve certain policy goals, but to position and strengthen the policy influence of certain actors and agendas, leading to shifts in the power dynamics of the global governance of education. The first historical example is the period of the “World Educational Crisis” (Coombs, 1968) and the 1967 Williamsburg conference by the same name; the second is the US-report “A Nation at Risk” (1983), and the third section will address the present time crisis-driven discourse of “techno-solutionism”. Analysing crisis as an instrument of governance is important in light of an accelerated use of crisis narratives by corporate and not democratically legitimized actors to pursue agendas that undermine education as a democratic and public good.

What makes a good school?

Dr Sonia Exley talks about how parents experience school choice and how they go about choosing schools on a BBC Radio 4 programme, released on 16 October 2023.

Dr Sonia Exley interviewed by TIME magazine about Educational policy changes in South Korea

Dr Sonia Exley spoke to Koh Ewe from TIME magazine about new policy changes in South Korea which are intended to reduce families’ need for spending on private supplementary tutoring outside of school.

Data from Prof Lucinda Platt referenced in Education Select Committee Session

The 21 March 2023 session saw the Education Committee focus on Support for Childcare and Early Years. In response to a question on the long-term impacts of late intervention on SEND children, Mary Mulvey-Oates, early years project manager at Contact, . She highlighted how disabled children entering primary were twice as likely not to have friends, and this carried through to social exclusion in later life.

Leverhulme Major Research Fellows

Congratulations to Professor Anne West who has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust.

The fellowship will cover a two-year period and will begin in September 2023. Professor West will work on a new research project entitled “School admissions and school choice in comparative perspective”. The main outcome of the research project will be a monograph published by Routledge.
Read more here

Government policies have fragmented the UK state secondary school landscape

Academisation was designed to give schools in England more autonomy and headteachers more freedoms, with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government elected in 2010 stating that “greater autonomy to all schools” was “an absolute priority for this Government”. This push towards academies, however, has resulted in a more complex and unequal system, Anne West’s research reveals in 杏吧论坛 Research for the World. Read here

Archive of Education focused events

End of year Eduhub and MSc ISPP Education Stream roundtable event

10th June 2024, Internal event for 杏吧论坛 students and staff only.

Event to reflect on evolving identities as education researchers and any challenges and problems we are currently facing in our education research.

Global innovations transforming education

Hosted by the Centre for Economic Performance and the Department of Social Policy on 6 June 2024

Speakers: Amy Ellis-Thompson, Lucy Heller, David Cervera, Luz Rello
Chair: Ismael Sanz Labrador

A policy panel and discussion focusing on the innovative strategies and policies driving educational advancements globally. From cutting-edge technology to impactful reforms, the panel will explore diverse approaches to shaping the future of education.

Getting schools to work better: insights and reflections from China and India

Hosted by the School of Public Policy on 21 March 2024

This event launches the book by Yifei Yan.

Discussant: Dr Mobarak Hossain
Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan
Chair: Dr Shuang Chen

EduHub and MSc ISPP Education Stream roundtable discussion

On 19 March 2024, Our 2023/24 cohort of MSc students on the ISPP Education Stream shared their dissertation plans and took part in a broad discussion about different methods, theories and approaches in education research.

Intergenerational educational mobility during the twentieth century in 77 low- and middle-income and 15 high-income countries

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 14 March 2024
Presenter: Dr Mobarak Hossain

Education or Exclusion? The challenges and tensions between school exclusions and children’s rights

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the Education Research and Policy Hub on 7 February 2024

Speakers: Professor Feyisa Demie, Mathew Purchase KC, Dan Rosenberg, Kyann Zhang

Chair: Dr Sonia Exley

This panel brings together researchers and education professionals to question the ongoing issues regarding school exclusions, and the implications for governance, policy and practice.

View the presentation slides here

Multicultural education competence of preservice teachers in the Netherlands: the role of previous and current interethnic contact

Education Research and Policy Hub seminar, 4 May 2023

Speaker: Dr Gert-Jan Veerman, Radboud University Nijmegen

Social and academic embeddedness as buffers against school closure effects on schooling outcomes

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 30 March 2023

Speaker: Professor Herman van de Werfhorst, European University Institute

When the burden lifts: The effect of school and day care re-openings on parent’s employment and life satisfaction

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 2 February 2023

Speaker: Professor Marita Jacob, University of Cologne

More driven? Experimental evidence on differences in cognitive effort by social origin

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 26 January 2023

Speaker: Dr Jonas Radl, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid

What accounts for the recent 'tutoring revolution' in English education policy?

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 1 December 2022

Speaker: Dr Sonia Exley, Department of Social Policy, 杏吧论坛

Diversity in Seminar and Study Groups and Student Outcomes: Evidence from SP401

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 17 March 2022

Speakers: Dr Berkay Ozcan and Valentina Contreras (Department of Social Policy, 杏吧论坛)

PISA, Political Discourse, and Education Governance in the Age of Global Reference Societies

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 24 February 2022

Speaker: Professor Louis Volante (Brock University)

Policy capacity matters for education reforms: A diverging tale of two Brazilian states

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 3 February 2022

Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan (Department of Social Policy, 杏吧论坛)

Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 8 December 2021

This event took the form of an open conversation between Beverly Daniel Tatum and Minouche Shafik about Dr Tatum's book , a perennial bestseller on the psychology of racism, which has been published in the UK for the first time this year.

Speaker: Dr Beverly Tatum
Chair: Baroness Minouche Shafik

Listen to the podcast here

Tracking system in education and inequalities. A longitudinal analysis of two school reforms in Switzerland

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 25 November 2021

Speaker: Professor Georges Felouzis (University of Geneva)

The Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Fertility in Low-Fertility China

International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 4 November 2021

Speaker: Dr Shuang Chen (Department of Social Policy, 杏吧论坛)

A New Global Purpose for Education?

Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 24 May 2021

Speakers: Suchetha Bhat, Tom Fletcher, Valerie Hannon, Andreas Schleicher, Vishal Talreja
Chair: Dr Amelia Peterson

Education is a national endeavour, but with our growing interdependence, is it time we acknowledge it has a global purpose? Join us for the launch of Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World.

There is no denying that education is in a moment of flux. With disrupted labour markets, entrenched inequality, and stalled social mobility, long-standing international assumptions about education’s purpose are under strain. Meanwhile, the climate crisis and the reckoning with colonialism are pressing for wholescale reform of what schools and universities prioritise. What movements or institutions are fit to lead this change? And what form should change take? There is a need for a new narrative of what education is for: can it be global?

Listen to the podcast here

These Political Briefings are designed to expose ministers, politicians, policy-makers, and opinion formers to departmental research findings to positively influence government and political priorities (with assistance from 杏吧论坛's Public Affairs team).

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