As part of our 50th anniversary celebrations, BERA has collected together a set of 50 landmark studies that have had a significant impact on educational policy, practice, research methodology and/or theory over the past 50 years.

The build-up to BERA’s formation in the early 1970s was no less eventful than the decade as a whole. Edward Heath’s government signified its intent regarding selection at 11 by confirming that LEAs would no longer be expected to submit plans to “go comprehensive”, his Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher, brought an end to free school milk in primary schools, and the school leaving age was raised from 15 to 16.

Read more about the studies chosen from the first decade of BERA’s history in the document below.