The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the McWane Science Center have partnered for over 20 years to provide secondary students in Alabama opportunities to conduct inquiry-based, standards-aligned science labs. LabWorks (middle school) and GENEius (high school) programs offer multiple research laboratory experiences in which students…

James Michael Lee (in Forging a better religious education in the third millennium, Religious Education Press, Birmingham, AL, 2000, p. 3) suggests that "religious education visions a broad sweeping future and then makes that future happen earlier than it would have happened if religious education were not there." Religious Education…

Background: This paper describes the process, impact and outcomes of an innovative health policy project entitled Gym for Free in Birmingham, UK. Objectives: To explore the short-term effectiveness of the pilot scheme in relation to access, utilisation, perceived benefits and sustainability. Design: Cross-sectional study using survey and focus…

This paper centres around a discussion of the design and rebuild of a secondary school in Birmingham (England) as part of the Building Schools of the Future (BSF) Programme. The BSF Programme was influenced by a vision of future schooling in which learning environments are transformed by the integration of ICT into teaching and learning practices.…

The Myself-As-a-Learner scale (MALS) has been constructed to assess academic self-concept (Burden, R. L. [2000]. "The Myself As a Learner Scale." Birmingham: Imaginative Minds; Burden, R. L. [2012]. "The Myself As a Learner Scale" [2nd ed.]. Cognitive Education Development Centre, Graduate School of Education, University of…

This hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions explores free speech on college campuses. Following an opening statement by Honorable Lamar Alexander (Chairman, Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions), the following senators provide statements: (1) Honorable Patty Murray, U.S. Senator from the State of…

In this paper, we use the concept of "consequential learning" to frame our exploration of what makes learning and doing science matter for youth from nondominant communities, as well as the barriers these youth must confront in working toward consequential ends. Data are derived from multimodal cases authored by four females from…

Recently, national populist politics has been translated with the emergence of two overlapping narratives of Islamophobia and anti-EU immigration media discourses. Such discourses have been made highly visible in the increased spike in hate crimes that have been a hidden cost of the national(ist) debate about Britain leaving the European Union…

This paper offers new insights into the effects of neo-liberal education policies on some Muslim majority schools in Birmingham. It critically reveals how the implementation of neo-liberal education policies, pursued by both Labour and Conservative Governments, has contributed to the failure of some mechanisms of school leadership and governance.…

The UK government seized the opportunity of the Trojan Horse affair to launch a damaging Islamophobic attack, eagerly relayed by a racist press, on the Muslim community in Birmingham and beyond, abusing Ofsted and the Prevent strategy as blatant instruments of ideologically-driven policy. The various reports found no evidence of radicalisation or…

Information literacy (IL) is increasingly considered to be an important life skill and there are a number of challenges that librarians face in implementing an effective IL program. This article examines the experience of library staff at Birmingham City University (BCU) and how they developed a printed workbook to be embedded within sessions…

This paper responds to the need for a greater integration of energy and environment themes in the higher education curriculum. We explore the practical implications of empowering students towards the implementation of individual action research projects focused on investigating and addressing insufficient or wasteful energy consumption among…

Education is a complex social practice. In the United Kingdom context, schooling is further nested within the complex social practices of community governance, quasi-market public choice, and religion. This essay explores the shifting definitions of community and education in the context of the Counter Terrorism and Security Act 2015, which places…

This report forms part of an international project, led by UNESCO's International Institute for Educational Planning (IIEP), on higher education's role in supporting "flexible learning pathways." Flexible learning pathways in higher education provide routes to the acquisition of knowledge and skills at different life stages, to meet the…

Social demand for higher education has more than doubled in the past 20 years. However, only one-third of all countries' higher education systems are enrolling more than 50% of the traditional age cohort. Despite major advancements in achieving higher levels of access and participation, inequalities and inequities in higher education persist and…