This paper presents a review of the family services that were offered by a sample of 121 English Sure Start Children's Centres in 2011 and 2012. Children's Centres are community based facilities that aim to improve outcomes for at-risk families and children through the delivery of a range of services largely aimed at families with young…

Various studies have noted that students enrolled in private schools in India perform better on average than students in government schools. In this paper, I show that large gaps in the test scores of children in private and public sector education are evident even at the point of initial enrollment in formal schooling and are associated with…

In the first volume of the "Oxford Review of Education" Jerome Bruner (1975) showed how the upbringing of the very young is influenced by poverty, and how different kinds of upbringing shape human development. He called the paper "Poverty and childhood" and baldly stated "With respect to virtually any criterion of equal…

Lagos is home to 12,098 private schools catering to 57% of the state's enrolled children, from ultra-rich to relatively poor households, with many schools targeting those of lower socio-economic status. Government schools were intended to provide a just and equitable option for all; however, they have not kept pace with demand in terms of…

Since 1997, England has seen massive changes in the Early Years including the introduction of an early childhood curriculum, free pre-school education for three-year-olds and local programmes for disadvantaged communities. Many of these initiatives took time to introduce and become established. Beginning in 2001, and each year thereafter until…

In spite of continuing patterning of curriculum subject preference and choice by gender, there has been little recent attention to the argument developed in the 1970s that children play with different toys according to their gender, and that these provide girls and boys with (different) curriculum-related skills. The article describes a…

The humanist movement of the Northern Renaissance--often called "Christian humanism" or "Erasmian humanism" (after its most famous member, Desiderius Erasmus)--had a lasting impact on many areas of European intellectual and cultural life. This paper reviews the contribution of Erasmus and his circle to the theory and practice of education. After…

This article presents the findings of the Birth to School Study (BTSS) a longitudinal evaluation of the Peers Early Education Partnership (PEEP); a family-focused intervention aimed at promoting early literacy, numeracy and self-esteem in a community at risk of educational underachievement. The main aim of the study was to investigate the effects…

UK government policy has increasingly emphasised the importance of learning in the home; and commercial companies have not been slow to respond. There is now a growing demand for out-of-school learning products and services, including study guides, early learning materials, educational web sites and private tuition. However the commercialisation…

The evidence discussed in this paper was gathered in a one-year study of how student teachers learn about learning in primary schools. In examining mentoring we pursued three research questions in order to increase our understanding of how mentoring processes were helping student teachers to work responsively in classrooms with pupils. The…