Responsibility for meeting the costs of higher education in England has moved inexorably away from the government toward the family with the introduction of tuition fee and maintenance loans. Although an important public policy issue, there is limited research on how the policy impinges on the private sphere of the family. This paper focuses on…

This paper explores hidden messages sent out by schools about Oxbridge, using Basil Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing. Research in three case-study schools captured these messages from their everyday practices and processes, including their events and activities, sorting mechanisms, interactions and resources. Whilst all of…

Pupils' attribution of significance to sensitive "heritage" of slavery may differ, particularly in multicultural classrooms. Little is known about the ways in which pupils establish a relationship with the present when discussing the significance of heritage of slavery. Starting from theories of historical significance and identity,…

The number of International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) schools has increased rapidly in China in recent years. However, access to schools offering the IBDP remains restricted to a relatively elite minority of China's population due to enrolment barriers for Chinese nationals and relatively high school fees. An implication is that…

This narrative synthesis based on a literature review undertaken for the project "Creating Citizenship Communities" (funded by the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation) includes discussion, principally, about what research evidence tells us about young people's definitions of community, of types of engagement by different groups of young…

Inclusion is generally recognised as an ongoing, active process which reflects shifts in policies, practice and values as well as political choices made over long periods of time. Drawing upon research visits set 10 years apart, this study aims to examine how two schools with clear inclusive aspirations and intentions have weathered the last…

A national emphasis in Britain on community cohesion and citizenship has highlighted the need to explore understandings of difference within and between communities, particularly in school contexts. This paper reports on the first phase of a larger project exploring pupils' understandings and experiences of identity and diversity within secondary…

This study explored over 100 Year 6 children's feelings towards, and behaviour within, literacy lessons across an academic year. This study revealed that the majority of dissatisfied children concealed their feelings from their teacher, defined within this article as "dissatisfaction behind a veil of compliance". Through progressive sampling,…

The issue of levels of participation in post-compulsory education has been emphasised by the current policy initiatives to increase the age to which some form of participation is compulsory. One of the acknowledged weaknesses of research in the field of children's intentions with regard to participation is the lack of longitudinal data. This paper…

This paper examines understandings of community and safety for Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) groups in schools in a metropolitan borough. One school in particular was identified as being the "Gypsy school" and was attended by the majority of GRT children in the borough. The school was recognised as a model of "good practice" reflecting its…

The article presents the findings from a survey of over 400 young people in metropolitan areas in the Netherlands and England concerning their views on identity and school history. The research explored pupils' ideas about which facets of history were of interest to them, what history they believed should be taught in schools, and their views on…

The paper reports a study of children's attitudes to school based on a questionnaire survey of 845 pupils in their first year of secondary school in England, together with interviews with a sample of the children. A clearly structured set of attitudes emerged from a factor analysis which showed a distinction between instrumental and affective…

Though it is being widely argued that expanding young people's capacity to learn is a viable and desirable goal of education, it it not always clear what this means, how it is to be achieved, and how the effectiveness of interventions is to be assessed. It is argued that the capacity to learn should be interpreted as a portmanteau term that…

"Active citizenship" is currently a popular term in citizenship education policy discourse. Despite this policy interest, there is no agreement about the meaning of "active citizenship". This article draws on data from the IEA Civic Education Study to explore how students themselves construct "active citizenship". The results show that students…

Over the last few years there has been a renewed interest in questions of citizenship and in particular its relation to young people. This has been allied to an educational discourse where the emphasis has been upon questions concerned with "outcome" rather than with "process"--with the curriculum and methods of teaching rather than questions of…