News and Blog

Recent findings by WISERD have found that Millennials are the most politically disinterested generation in the history of British survey research. WISERD research examining youth political engagement in Wales has found that while young people exhibit unremarkable levels of the attitudes most commonly associated with political alienation, they demonstrate a noticeably high level of apathy…

Following our event ‘Young People and Politics: the future direction of youth engagement in Wales’ on the 6th of this month, we are pleased to publish Jake Smith’s reflections on the day. Jake is a postgraduate student at the School of Law and Politics, Cardiff University and was involved in recording and writing-up discussion and debate…

As Professor Sir Ian Diamond says in his introduction to The Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance Arrangements in Wales “in times of austerity it is easy for society to focus solely on current challenges and forget that it is essential to continue to invest in educating the future generations who will drive the economy…

Since February 2016 we at WISERD have been running a small project on Young People and the EU Referendum in partnership with Youth Cymru, the Council for Wales of Voluntary Youth Services (CWVYS) and the National Assembly for Wales’ Youth Engagement Team and our talented cameraman Justin at Farsight Creative. As well as writing around 30 blogs on this site, giving presentations at…

Introduction to the Social Media Research Series Welcome to a new blog series here at WISERD, dedicated to exploring some of the key issues with using social media for social research.  This was initially conceived as a chance to outline some of the various tools that exist for collecting and analysing social media data.  However,…

The usual discussions about children’s schooling experiences often focus on academic achievement, personal development and school evaluation. Ask a teacher, parent or policy maker what is the most important thing a school should offer and many will say it is education: they want children to develop the knowledge and skills that will help them build…

  In 2014, I presented a paper at the British Education Research Association’s (BERA) annual conference. Shortly after the presentation, I was approached by an editor with Palgrave MacMillan and asked if I was interested in publishing a book as part of the Pivot series on citizenship education in Wales. I was delighted by the…

Just 18 weeks passed between the announcement of a UK referendum on EU membership, and the vote for Brexit. In this startlingly short time an intense and competitive environment sprung-up as the two official campaigns Vote Leave and Britain Stronger in Europe made their case. Both sides quickly succumbed to name calling, dishonesties and emotional arguments. As a result…

Last week (4th-6th July) I attended the 11th international Interpretive Policy Analysis (IPA) Conference in Hull, 2017 UK City of Culture. This article reflects on the conference and the IPA. Most importantly, it highlights the sense and benefits of an IPA community within which a milieu of interdisciplinary and international social and policy researchers can reside. Variation in topics covered…

Before the referendum our post on ‘Religion and the EU Referendum’ examined how preferences for the UK’s membership of the European Union were affected by the religious affiliations of Christian voters. We found notable differences between the denominations, with Anglicans, Methodists and Baptists supporting a withdrawal from the EU, Presbyterians and those of no religious…