The British Educational Research Association (BERA) has promulgated a concept of close-to-practice research that is seen as vital to defending and promoting education as an academic discipline. However, what is overlooked are the questions of what education is for and what educational practice is--questions that need to be addressed for any…

The past decade has seen increased attention paid to the ethical complexities of educational research undertaken in sensitive or 'fragile' settings, where trauma, marginalisation and socio-political precarity are prevalent. Yet, despite increased awareness of micro-ethical issues encountered in the field, there is limited research that engages…

School bullying attracts significant research and resources globally, yet critical questions are being raised about the long-term impact of these efforts. There is a disconnect between young people's perspectives and the long-established psychology-based technical definitions of school bullying dominating practice and policy in Australia. This…

The BERA initiative on promoting Close-to-Practice (CtP) research raises new challenges for action research, particularly as uncertainties about the standing and rigour of action research were expressed in the report of the education panel for the 2015 Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the United Kingdom. The work of tackling these challenges…

This study presents some of the current methodological issues regarding the analysis and comprehension of educational policy transfer, with particular emphasis on the issue of structure and agency. It suggests some shortcomings of current educational policy transfer research in dealing with the complex interaction between structure and agency. To…

The growth, internationally, in professional doctorates over the last 25 years has been well documented, as are the forms, fields and disciplines that such doctorates embrace. Yet relatively little is known about the professional tensions teachers encounter, in relation to their positionality, when carrying out doctoral research in the schools…

Drawing on descriptions of research-into-practice initiatives, this article presents a new framework to aid understanding of how research findings influence educational practice at scale. The framework focuses upon five areas: trustworthiness of the findings and generalisability; implications and instructions for practice; support for…

Creating and disseminating knowledge through research and teaching has long been regarded as the hallmark of the modern university. However, new university business models have called into question the 'bundling' of teaching and research, and sustained research on the relationship between teaching and research has found little evidence of an…

The increasing number of people studying abroad has drawn significant scholarly attention to the experiences of international students. While these works have productively informed policy and practice regarding how international students may be better supported, they have not always considered the active ways international students contribute to…

The aim of this article is to emphasise physicality and embodiment in child-centred research, fieldwork and intellectual activity. It will argue that research is not a separate form of action, placing the researcher in a position of epistemological privilege, but an embodied capacity developed through practical activity. This will be explored…

The concept of "phronesis" enters educational discourse at various levels of engagement, and it continues to fascinate and frustrate educational theorists in equal measure. This article begins by charting the vagaries of three educational discourses on phronesis, and by eliciting insights from the recently burgeoning wisdom research…

This article draws heavily on the post-abyssal philosophy of Boaventura de Sousa Santos in order to theorise new ways of thinking about research ethics in settings affected by armed conflict and crisis, and to put them into practice. Our article explores the dilemmas and tensions faced by four graduate students and a supervisor across diverse…

In the midst of an international debate about immigration, this qualitative ethnographic study focuses on the stories and teaching practices of immigrant and refugee educators working with immigrant and refugee youth at a community-based after-school programme in the Midwestern region of the USA. Using existing literature to describe the…

Mixed-methods (MM) designs have gained increasing interest in educational research. Still, many studies collect quantitative and qualitative data but report these data separately and do not attempt to integrate them in practice. The aim of this article is to discuss the purposes and processes of integrating qualitative and quantitative data in an…

The value of teachers' engagement in and with research is long recognised and it is acknowledged that school-university research partnerships are one way of enabling such engagement. But we know little about how research-based knowledge is negotiated into school practices. Here we draw on data from nine 'research champions', who are teachers in…