Publications

The Good Childhood Report 2018 is the seventh in a series of annual ‘state of the nation’ reports on children’s well-being in the UK, born out of a desire to fill the gap in what is known about how children feel about their lives. In 2005, The Children’s Society joined forces with the University of…

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…

Purpose —The oversupply of college graduates and increasing competition in the Chinese urban labor market have forced college students to undertake internships much earlier and to a greater intensity in the hope of boosting their employment prospects. It may be argued that the considerable time and energy thus spent on internships is deleterious to their…

In January 2018, the Welsh Government appointed OB3 Research, in conjunction with the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD) of Cardiff University, to undertake a scoping study for an overseas study pilot. The Welsh Government is committed to running a pilot scheme to explore the practicalities of extending the new…

There has been growing concern about the rising numbers of students being excluded from school in England – a trend that is often set against the declining levels of exclusion elsewhere. In Wales and Scotland, for example, numbers of students permanently excluded from school have fallen dramatically. However, we argue that simple system-level comparisons might…

This article considers three different concepts of the role of the teacher. Buber understands the teacher as the builder-teacher of a dialogical community playing a fundamental role in the character formation of individuals. Freire develops this notion, adding a political tinge, and argues for a political-teacher who plays a central role in the formation of critical individuals and in…

This paper considers the role that schools have in determining whether school leavers participate in higher education or not. It examines the association between schools and university participation using a unique dataset of 3 cohorts of all young people leaving maintained schools in Wales. School “effects” are identified, even after controlling for individual-level factors, such…

Background and Objectives Careers guidance for young people is regarded as important for supporting positive labour market outcomes. In particular, by helping young people to develop their career management competencies and their roles as learners and workers, careers guidance can help reduce the number of young people who fall outside of the education, training or employment system and from becoming ‘NEETS’….

  Reviewed Work Handbook of Education in China, edited by W. John Morgan, Qing Gu and Fengliang Li, Cheltenham, UK, Edward Edgar, 2017, 558 pp., £85 (hardback), ISBN 978-1-78347-065-5 Introduction This edited volume is a highly comprehensive handbook that contains everything a beginning scholar in Chinese education might need to know. Over 23 chapters it…

In December 2017 Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education in Wales commissioned WISERD to undertake an independent review of the implications for Estyn following the significant changes taking place in Wales through the development of a new curriculum together with a wide range of education reforms. The report written as a result of this review…