In the past 20 years the importance of creativity as part of young people's education has increasingly been recognised. The stimulus for the growing emphasis on creativity has come from diverse sources including drives for greater national economic prosperity and enlightenment visions of young people's education. One facet of creativity…

This article presents the results of two studies on the use of school self-evaluation in the Netherlands and Flanders. It focuses on which forms of instrumental use of school self-evaluation results can be found in schools, and how differences in self-evaluation use between schools can be explained. Results show that the instrumental use of…

Since the 1990s the educational community has witnessed a proliferation of "bullying" discourses, primarily within the field of educational developmental social psychology. Drawing on ethnographic and qualitative interview data of primary and secondary school girls and boys, this article argues that the discourse "bullying" operates to simplify…

This article documents the collaborative research and development of an apprenticeship model of learning for the arts. It focuses on teachers working in partnership with artists and other creative practitioners. The model is rooted in theories of social learning and cognitive apprenticeship. It was developed and tested through collaborative…

To explore whether different balances of fiction/non-fiction reading and challenge might help explain differences in reading achievement between genders, data on 45,670 pupils who independently read over 3 million books were analysed. Moderate (rather than high or low) levels of challenge were positively associated with achievement gain, but…

This article offers a defence of critical realism in the face of objections Nash (2005) makes to it in a recent edition of this journal. It is argued that critical and scientific realisms are closely related and that both are opposed to statistical positivism. However, the suggestion is made that scientific realism retains (from statistical…

This article reports on the results of two international systematic research reviews which focus on different aspects of teaching grammar to improve the quality and accuracy of 5-16-year-olds' writing in English. The results show that there is little evidence to indicate that the teaching of formal grammar is effective; and that teaching…

The advent of large-scale matched data sets, linking pupils' attainment across key stages, gives new opportunities to explore the effects of school organisational factors on pupil performance. Combined with currently available sophisticated and efficient software for multilevel analysis, it offers educational researchers the chance to develop…

Probes rationale for extensively school-based training programs, involving school-based teacher mentors as supporters of student teachers' learning. Asks what student teachers are learning in schools and how that learning is supported. Suggests student teachers' learning is heavily situated--they are not acquiring easily transferable ways of…

Describes 10 roles teachers can perform to put the concepts of metacognition and transfer into practice, identified by interviewing students who had been taught using the innovative practice of debriefing. Discusses the broader issues of how teachers can be engaged in research and knowledge production in a satisfying relationship. (BT)

Highlights key factors in learning careers, particularly in relation to the impact of formative assessment practices. Relates research findings on formative assessment in primary and further education to studies which use Pierre Bourdieu's notions of habitus, field, cultural and social capital to explore learning careers and learning identities in…

Argues that although John Gray, Harvey Goldstein, and Sally Thomas treat the notion of trend in an unproblematic manner, as deterministic time trends, movements in data identified by Gray as school improvement trends may not be generated by the deterministic processes they assume. Opines these upward and downward movements may reflect a purely…

Explores the value of introducing single-sex classes within co-educational schools. Draws upon perspectives of girls and boys involved in one such initiative. Concludes girls-only classes may have positive effects for girls, but curriculum-as-usual boys' classes do nothing to challenge problematic male cultures inherent in schools. (BT)

Takes as background the shift over time in Great Britain toward models of target setting in education, based almost entirely on measurable outputs. Outlines some alternative models involving targets for inputs and processes, and use of targets that are exhortative rather than directly measurable. (BT)

States the Labour Government has given the Office for Standards in Education (OFSTED), the school inspection agency for England, a lead role in monitoring how schools are preventing and addressing racism. Considers the extent to which the school inspection framework provides an effective model for the promotion of race equality. (BT)