Publications

  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…

Gwerddon, 26(2) The Foundation Phase (FP) is a statutory curriculum in each state school in Wales since 2008. The curriculum follows a developmentally appropriate pedagogy, and encourages children to engage by learning through experiences. The paper that follows is taken from a wider evaluation of the FP, commissioned by Welsh Government in 2012 and considers…

The article draws upon Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and cultural capital to provide an in-depth analysis of the gender differences in students’ motivation for undertaking postgraduate (PG) education in Mainland China. It reports an in-depth case study comprising 381 questionnaires and 30 semi-structured interviews. The quantitative data show that students who enter PG education do…

This paper focuses on the ‘mainstreaming’ of charities into schools. There have been growing concerns about the permeation of business and business values in education, but relatively little attention has been paid to the ways in which schools are increasingly engaged in the ‘business’ of fundraising for charities. Drawing on survey data from the WISERDEducation…

WISERD Education was launched in 2012 in order to change the landscape of educational research in Wales. The main aims of the Programme were: to enhance the capacity to carry out high quality educational research within the higher education sector in Wales; •    to undertake research activities designed to improve the quality of learning and…

Since the Research Excellence Framework of 2014 (REF2014) ‘impact’ has created a conceptual conundrum gradually being pieced together by academics across the Higher Education sector. Emerging narratives and counter-narratives focus upon its role in dictating institutional reputation and funding to universities. However, not only does literature exploring impact, rather than ‘REF2014 impact’ per se, seldom…

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…

In July 2017, the Welsh Government appointed OB3 Research, in conjunction with WISERD, to undertake an evaluation of the Seren Network. A formative and process evaluation of the Seren Network was commissioned to inform decisions about the criteria for young people’s participation and the design and delivery of the programme at national and local levels….

There is a growing amount of evidence on children’s subjective well-being in general, but research on this topic with younger children is still scarce. In the UK, Wave 4 of the Millennium Cohort Study asked questions about positive and negative affect to a nationally representative sample of over 13,000 children aged around seven years old….