Evidence suggests that early education can promote children's development and narrow attainment gaps between those from lower-income and higher-income families. However, realisation of these potential benefits depends on many factors, feasibly including peer composition. We use national census data for a year-group cohort of children in England in…

This article reviews two recent books on the rising use of digital data in schools and university education, reflecting on areas of further research, analysis, and action. The books discussed are: (1) "The datafication of primary and early years education: playing with numbers," by A. Bradbury and G. Roberts-Holmes, London, Routledge,…

Empirical studies have repeatedly shown that in Germany educational success still strongly depends on the social origin of individuals. Using the National Educational Panel Study, we analyse the effects of fathers' and mothers' education levels on their sons' and daughters' educational attainments across three successive birth cohorts in West…

Resilience research has increasingly gained ground in the field of education research, due to its potential for ameliorating inequalities. This article deals with the emergence of educational resilience, with particular attention to parental network structure, by employing a Bourdieusian social and cultural capital approach. While much of the…

This article presents interview data from a study involving nine primary school leaders. Five are leaders of local authority schools while four are leaders of schools within a large academy chain. The article examines their perspectives about the current regimes of performativity in the English education context and, in particular, the…

The health of children in affluent economies has become closely tied to the ideal of a normative body weight achieved by monitoring and balancing diet and physical activity. As a result, the education of young people on how to avoid becoming fat begins at an early age through the language and practices of families, the messages embedded in…

Global and national agendas to improve the "quality" of Education For All have brought focus to pedagogic processes in developing country contexts. How can development research pay attention to the social and political significance of pedagogical projects and understand the micro-processes of classroom reform? This paper considers how…

Much recent sociological work on education makes reference to gender, sexual, ethnic, local and political "project" identities, yet there remains a need to bring the nation, and the state, back in; to also question the way in which "national" identities are constructed in a context of globalisation and localisation. Through an…