Publications

Foreword The WISERD Education Multi-Cohort Study (WMCS) recently celebrated its 10-year anniversary. The WMCS is a longitudinal study of children and young people in Wales. It was established in 2012 by Professor Sally Power and Professor Chris Taylor to chart the progress of children and young people growing up in Wales. Under their stewardship the…

This paper explores UK school students’ protest activism relating to their schools’ policies and practices, drawing on two datasets: 1) a newspaper analysis of media reports relating to school protests between 2000 and 2021; 2) a survey of 800 secondary school pupils in Wales. Drawing on social movements literature and adapting concepts for the school…

This paper considers the relationship between children’s subjective well-being at school and the fulfilment of their participation rights. Our research focuses on the association between children’s involvement in decision making in school and their subjective well-being (SWB) using international evidence from the Children’s Worlds survey. The analysis uses data from the third wave of the…

We’ve gathered young people’s views on their teachers, school trips, why they’ve been asked to leave the classroom and why they’ve been given a detention. We also asked about the GCSE subjects they’ve chosen and their awareness of vocational education. We’ve also asked them about growing up in Wales more generally, including their awareness of…

The survey results and analysis of the experiences and worries of children and young people in Wales and their priorities for the Children’s Commissioner.

This report presents the results of an evidence review on the human rights of children in Wales and covers the period 2015 to the present day. The legal structures and processes in place to realise children’s rights in Wales are well known: for example, the Rights of Children and Young Persons (Wales) Measure 2011, which…

This article explores issues of headteacher recruitment, retention and professional development in Wales, within the context of the wider educational policy reforms which, since 2011, have introduced greater external accountability into schools. The paper argues that these reforms have resulted in changes to headteachers’ professional roles and identities and that some aspects have militated against…

This article considers the professional work, identity and recruitment of head teachers (HTs) in Wales. Drawing on the sociology of professions, the article illustrates how intensive educational policy reform post‐2011 has restricted HTs’ professional agency and re‐orientated the head teacher role towards organisational professionalism. Drawing on semi‐structured interviews (n=30) with both head and deputy head…

This paper presents data that consider ways in which young people experience the curriculum through the lens of subject examination syllabuses (for GCSEs), their associated assessment techniques and structures, and educational policies at national and school level concerning subject choice. Drawing upon an original qualitative dataset from a mixed-methods study of students’ views and experiences…