Education and learning

Situating the cases of England and Australia within broader global policy trends, this book critically analyses what has gone wrong with education policy. Drawing on wide-ranging research, the authors issue a fundamental challenge to current policy orthodoxies, and identify policy alternatives to make education both better and fairer.

This book explores how young people across different European contexts participate in decision-making and foster changes on issues that concern them and their communities, giving new insights into discourses on young people’s as active citizens across Europe.

This book assesses the challenges young people face in the contemporary labour markets of England and Germany in the context of mass migration, rising nationalism and accelerating technological change, and considers the resources and skills young people in Europe will need in the future.

Co-authored by an international team of experts across disciplines, this important book is one of the first to demonstrate the enormous benefit creative methods offer for education research. It illustrates how using creative methods, such as poetic inquiry, theatre and animation, can support learning and illuminate participation and engagement.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Drawing on participatory international research, this book argues for a radical transformation in children’s roles in responding, planning and adapting to disasters. It demonstrates how child-centred ways of working will benefit all those involved.

This book addresses important questions about tackling today’s epidemic of loneliness among young people, exploring experiences of loneliness in early life and considering how social conditions of austerity, precarity, inequality and competitive pressures to succeed can dramatically influence these feelings.

Leading academics reflect on concepts and aspects of public sociology education in this perceptive collection of case studies, linked by critical dialogue between contributors. They consider publics, practices and special knowledges in the field, and go beyond academia’s boundaries to explore the purposes and targets of sociological knowledge.

Pat Thomson takes on England’s muddled education system and exposes fraudulent and unethical practices, including the skewing of the curriculum and manipulation of results. She argues for an urgent review of current practices, leading to a revitalised education system that has the public good at its heart.

The nuanced interconnections of poverty and educational attainment across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are explored in this unique analysis. Experts investigate how different educational structures and policies affect teachers’ engagement with marginalised groups and consider how inequalities might be reduced.

This close investigation of student protests in the UK, Canada, Chile and Italy represents the first comparative review of the subject. Setting the wave of demonstrations within the contexts of student activism, social issues and political movements, it casts new light on their impact on higher education and on the broader society.

This book uses up-to-date evidence to interrogate contemporary patterns of ethnic and social segregation at a school-level, looking at how the changing geographies of ethnic segregation reflect those of social segregation.

Can affirmative action in US college admissions survive mounting threats? This judicious review, part of the Sociology of Diversity series, considers the question using up-to-date sociological, policy and legal perspectives to explain both sides of the fierce debate over affirmative action in the context of prominent Supreme Court cases.