Breaking barriers: The journey of women’s sports in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

For decades, sports in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) were a male-dominated domain. Women’s participation in physical activity was limited by cultural barriers, societal expectations and a...

A digital learning model integrating Bronfenbrenner’s Human Ecology Model with the Chinese He and Xie Principles that support diverse learners

The rise of online learning has led to new digitally connected teaching models. With the growth of learning platforms and AI tools like ChatGPT, the higher education sector faces the challenge of...

School health and wellbeing, and national education system reform in Wales

The Curriculum for Wales prioritises young people’s health and wellbeing, with a strategic aim for all children in Wales to be healthy and confident individuals. Following national roll-out,...

Enhancing apprenticeships: Insights for educators and mentors on maximising off-the-job training

Introduction Off-the-job (OTJ) training is a vital part of degree apprenticeships in England, requiring apprentices to dedicate 20 per cent of their learning to activities outside their usual...

Documenting and dismantling language ideologies in education

10 years of the BERA Blog

Over the past few years, I have carried out extensive fieldwork in secondary schools in England, where my focus has been the beliefs about spoken language on display in classrooms, corridors and...

Developing biliteracy through a traditional, cross-linguistic pedagogical approach

Cross-linguistic pedagogy, which involves using multiple languages in classrooms to foster literacy development by providing a ‘bridge between languages,’ has recently gained significant...

A century of educating Britain’s political elite: Privilege masquerading as meritocracy?

In this blog post, we examine the UK secondary schools and universities that educated Cabinet ministers between 1922 and 2022. The UK seems widely relevant, as every country possesses elite...

Developing student teachers’ confidence to teach languages through an authentic microteaching exercise

Compulsory languages teaching for primary teachers in Scotland Following the introduction of the Scottish Government’s 1+2 language policy in 2012, all primary teachers in Scotland are expected...

The ‘Dear Researcher’ workshop on participatory research spaces at the BERA 2024 conference: Insights and practical examples of researching with youth co-researchers

The ‘Dear Researcher’ workshop that I facilitated at the 2024 BERA Conference, had developed through years of research working alongside children and young people as co-researchers. The...