News and Blog

Siôn Llewelyn Jones explores how parents choose the medium of their child’s education Recently, the Welsh Government set a target of increasing the number of Welsh speakers to 1 million by 2050. The Welsh Government considers Welsh-medium education to be central in achieving this target. At the moment, in South-East Wales, parents choose whether to…

Dr Sophie Yarker on the unique shared Remembrance Day practices in Aberystwyth Remembrance Sunday and its parades, wreath-laying and fundraising provides perhaps one of the clearest examples of the coming together of civil society through a shared practice of memorialisation. Although dominated nationally by the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal, at a community level there…

Josie Phillips has recently graduated from her third year of a sociology degree at Cardiff University. This summer, Josie undertook a research placement at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), assisting Dr Esther Muddiman with a project about the passing on of values between family members. As my third year of…

Louise Taylor is in the second year of her sociology degree at Cardiff University. This summer she took part in a Cardiff Undergraduate Research Opportunities Programme (CUROP) placement at the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD). Louise has been working with Dr Esther Muddiman on a project about intergenerational values….

We often think about what young people can expect to gain from university, or what universities contribute to society. But it’s not often that we talk about how higher education can change society beyond the shaping of individuals. As tuition fees rise, and universities are cast in increasingly intense competition for students and staff, their…

Having previously looked at the different types of GCSE courses and how they are assessed, in the third and final blog of this series, Dr Rhian Barrance outlines recent research on tiering and considers how fair it is for different groups of students.   Tiering has been used for GCSEs since they were introduced in 1986. Currently, for…

Earlier this week we looked at the recent reforms to GCSEs across England, Northern Ireland and Wales and considered students’ views on linear and modular courses. In the second part of this series exploring students’ perspectives on the fairness of GCSEs, Dr Rhian Barrance considers whether internal assessment should be used alongside exams. The question of how…

Across England, Northern Ireland and Wales, many 16-year-olds are awaiting the release of their GCSE results tomorrow. This year, for the first time, students in England will receive results for some subjects using the new (9-1) grading system, while students in Northern Ireland and Wales will continue to have their papers graded using the existing…

In the first of a series of blogs about students’ perspectives on the fairness of GCSEs, Dr Rhian Barrance outlines the recent reforms to GCSEs across England, Northern Ireland and Wales, and considers students’ views on linear and modular courses. Across England, Northern Ireland and Wales, many 16-year-olds are awaiting the release of their GCSE…

The 28-30th July marked the 8th annual Social Media & Society Conference. The conference is organised by the Social Media Lab at Ryerson University in Toronto and this year it returned home to Canada after last year’s excursion to Goldsmiths in London. WISERD Research Associate, Dr Wil Chivers presented at both of these conferences and in his latest blog he reveals his highlights…