This article presents the findings from research conducted at nine schools (seven primary, two secondary) in England, which had previously implemented a peer mediation service for students experiencing interpersonal conflict. This analysis was informed by themes from a previous stage of research conducted at one additional primary school, where…

This paper reflects on tensions and challenges in encouraging and enabling students to foreground their personal emotional material in the learning process, while this process itself remains embedded in the neoliberal subjectivities of the university, wider social contexts and the individual selves. We explore our teaching on a final year…

Despite a growing body of advocacy for the beneficial effects of music education upon individuals' development and wellbeing, lived experiences in the music classroom are testament to a diversity of both positive and negative musical encounters. For some pupils, classroom music-making is characterized by opportunities, achievements, and…

This paper draws on a survey conducted in 2020-21 in which 163 secondary English teachers in England named a total of 68 individual poems by poets of colour from the global majority which they taught in Key Stage 3 (students aged 11-14). Using the concepts of framing and mental schemas, we categorised these poems by considering which was the most…

Studies of conflictual workplace discourse are rare, both in language-awareness research and discourse analysis more generally, owing partly to the difficulty in gaining access to such interactions, and arguably to the relative rarity of conflictual discourse occurring at work. The topic is therefore both under-analysed and under-theorised.…

Within the literature on the psychology of forgiveness, researchers have hypothesized that the 1st stage in the process of being able to forgive is the role of psychological defense. To examine such a hypothesis, the authors explored the relationship between forgiveness and defense style. The 304 respondents (151 men, 153 women) completed measures…

This study of an outdoor-based leadership course for teenagers shows how open-ended, difficult group tasks can enable participants to develop "dispositions for learning," which promote "responsible leadership." The latter is defined as responding ethically and uniquely to encounters with difference. Uses of educational…

Reflecting on "The Antidote," created with performers in recovery from addiction, this paper theorises theatre-making practice that attends to being as formed through affective and emotive relation with others, including the non-human. It suggests that theatrical activity generates spaces, or liminal milieus, that facilitate new patterns…

By its very nature ethnography is an emergent methodology. To be ethical the ethnographer needs to manage research ethics in-situ. This need to manage ethical dilemmas as they arise often comes into conflict with increased ethical regulation and procedures from ethics review boards that require the researcher to foresee ethical quandaries before…

Restorative practice (RP) is a behaviour management method that aims to help students develop conflict resolution and aggression management skills. This study aimed to explore the views of teaching professionals about the adoption of RP, as a whole school approach, over a five year period. Five staff (two females, three males) aged between 30 and…

This is an exploratory study of interpersonal relationships in the sixth form class of a comprehensive secondary school. The focus is on the students' common room--a combination homeroom, lounge, and study hall--and how students interact there in cooperation and conflict. The data were derived from interviews. (Author/SJL)

In the light of increased interest in teachers' professional identities, this paper addresses the under-researched area of teachers' writing identities and examines the factors which influence how primary phase teachers are positioned and position themselves as teacher-writers in the literacy classroom. It draws on case studies of two…

A significant and growing percentage of the children enrolled in early childhood education and care (ECEC) programs in Europe and the United States are children of recent im/migrants. For most young (3-5 years old) children of parents who have come from other countries, ECEC settings are the first context in which they come face to face with…

This first paper in the intrapersonal skills series presents a conceptual model of intrapersonal skills. Intrapersonal skills are defined as those skills individuals need to possess and perfect in order to manage themselves, and as a prerequisite to interpersonal skills. It is noted that intrapersonal skills are concerned with lessening internal…

A case study of a mixed comprehensive school with an age range of 11-16 investigates the management of the first externally imposed change on the secondary school system during the years 1987-89. Implemented in 1986, the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) is a national examination for all 16-year-olds delivered through the subjects…