Dr Edward Kessler, University of Cambridge, gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series on 7th November 2016. Religion and belief are driving forces in society today.

Although there is some divergence of opinion over the extent, there is unanimity that the UK is becoming less Christian, less religious and more diverse. Dr Ed Kessler, Vice Chairman of the Commission on Religion and Belief in British Public Life, will discuss the implications of the dramatic changes in the religious landscape in less than two generations.

The Commission’s report, ‘Living with Difference’, was published in December 2016 and generated a fierce debate about UK public policy related to religion and belief. Dr Kessler will reflect on the reaction to the report as well as its impact in the areas of education, the media, law, dialogue and social action.

Understanding religion and belief is not an option but a necessity that the Government needs to factor into their approaches. The pattern of religious affiliation has changed and continues to change. Policymakers and politicians need to catch up with events, to enhance their capacity to read a most potent sign of our times - religion and belief.

Professor Simon Marginson, ULC Institute of Education, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series. This seminar returns to a long-standing issue in the literature on higher education systems, that of the relationship, if any, between diversity (horizontal differentiation based on variation in HEI mission, organisational cultures, educational practices etc), the growth of participation levels, and marketisation.

The classical American literature suggested that diversity, participation and competition all tended to advance together but more recent empirical studies in the English-speaking world suggest that markets foster vertical differentiation rather than horizontal variety and encourage imitating behaviour which reduces diversity, while the growth of participation is neutral in relation to horizontal diversity. States have contrary implications for diversity: sometimes they regulate greater homogenisation, sometimes they deliberately foster variety in the form of specialist institutions or sectors.

The paper surveys the world wide terrain, in which participation is rapidly advancing—in 56 countries more than 50% of the young age cohort enters higher education. It finds that the principal features of the present period, in association with growth, are (1) the advance of the multi-purpose multi-disciplinary research multiversity as the main institutional form, (2) a secular decline in the role of non-university sectors and specialist institutions, (3) an increase in internal diversity in the large multiversities, (4) an increase in vertical stratification in many systems, (5) no increase in horizontal diversity overall and a probable decline in diversity, except for the rise of for-profit colleges in some countries.

Professor Tony Gallagher, University of Belfast, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series on 24th October 2016. Mass education has traditionally been used as an integrating force, perhaps most notably in the role of the public school in the United States.

In the latter part of the 20th century overt assimilation through education was increasingly critiqued and attention shifted towards the incorporation of various forms of multiculturalism in schools. In some societies separate schools operated in recognition of different identities: in some contexts separate schools were used to maintain patterns of domination­oppression, but in others it was an attempt to allow minorities to maintain their own identities.

Northern Ireland has operated separate schools for over a century, and many pointed to this as a factor in social division and political violence: various interventions were applied during the years of the violence, but few showed evidence of creating positive systemic change. For the last decade a new approach, based on promoting collaborative networks of Protestant and Catholic schools, has been put in place. ‘Shared education’ seeks to create dialogic processes between communities, at all levels, by using network effects to change the nature of the relationship between schools and communities in local areas while focusing on social, educational and economic goals.

This presentation outlines the background to the development of shared education in Northern Ireland and traces how it has developed. The paper also will examine briefly how the idea has been adopted in other contexts, most notably in Israel.

Dr Therese N Hopfenbeck, Department of Education, Oxford, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar Series on 17th October 2016. Co-written with Dr Jenny Lenkeit More information is available here;

http://oucea.education.ox.ac.uk/research/recent-research-projects/pirls-for-teachers/

There is a knowledge gap between information provided by international large-scale assessments (ILSA) such as PIRLS, PISA, and TIMSS, the publically available research results and what is of interest and use to teachers in England.

Considering the public costs needed to participate in international studies, the link between this form of assessment and its impact on classroom pedagogy is alarmingly low and questions about the use of this data and related research grow more urgent. But, the understanding of how to engage the users of research is still developing and the use and impact of research on practice is as yet minimal. One reason for this is seen in excluding practitioners from research activities that concern their professional field.

The PIRLS for Teachers project (ESRC IAA funded) first engaged with teachers to increase their knowledge about PIRLS and their capacity to use data and information provided by the survey. Second, it aimed to increase researchers’ understanding of the challenges teachers face in dealing with PIRLS findings and identifying their specific needs and interests. Third, teachers and researchers acted as co-producers of relevant new knowledge by jointly interpreting the PIRLS findings, addressing new research questions and finding ways in which results can be used to improve teaching practice.

We will outline the rationale of our project, discuss the challenges for us as researchers and for the teachers, present the materials developed in collaboration with teachers and discuss the impact and dissemination strategy.

We expect the outcomes of the project to enhance not only teachers’ professional learning about PIRLS and its use for improving classroom practice but also that of researchers about practitioners’ needs for understanding and using findings provided in ILSA. We also expect teachers to wrestle with the possible contradicting evidence from their own classrooms and from PIRLS. Overall, outcomes of this research will contribute to strengthening the link between ILSA, teachers’ understanding of its findings and the improvement of classroom practices, partly through possible new research collaborations.

This lecture discusses the development of various measures of students experiences and views of their secondary schools based on self report questionnaires taken at ages 14 & 16.

Professor Leonidas Kyriakides, Department of Education, University of Cyprus, gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series. This lecture refers to the dynamic approach to school improvement (DASI) which attempts to contribute to the merging of educational effectiveness research and school improvement. The main underlying assumptions and the implementation phases of DASI are presented. The recommended approach gives emphasis to school policies and actions taken to improve teaching and the school learning environment. Moreover, the importance of establishing school evaluation mechanisms and collecting data to identify improvement priorities is stressed. Furthermore, DASI emphasizes the use of the available knowledge base in relation to the main aims of the efforts made by schools to deal with the different challenges/problems being faced. Therefore, an advisory and research team is expected to support school stakeholders develop, implement, and evaluate their own school improvement strategies and action plans. Five group- randomization studies investigating the impact of DASI on promoting quality in education are also presented. These studies reveal the conditions in which DASI can promote student learning outcomes. Finally, suggestions for research, policy and practice are provided.

Dr Ann Childs, Dr Nigel Fancourt, Dr Roger Firth, Professor Ian Menter and Dr Ian Thompson, Department of Education, Oxford, give a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminar series. Abstract:

During 2012, the National College for Teaching and Leadership, working in collaboration with a number of partners, designed a major research and development initiative entitled Closing the Gap - Test and Learn. The contract to run the project was awarded to CfBT who worked in partnership with CUREE and the Universities of Durham and Oxford to deliver the scheme from 2012-2015.

They invited lead teaching schools in teaching school alliances to apply to take part in a national trial of seven particular intervention programmes, each of which had been identified as having significant potential in 'closing the attainment gap'. That is, they were programmes designed to improve the attainment of children who were low achievers. A total of more than 700 Schools joined the programme in its first year and bid to work with one or more of the interventions. Half of the schools went into the trial group and commenced the programme during 2014. The other half of the schools went into a control group and waited until the next academic year to undertake the programme. In all schools, a sample of pupils was identified for participation in the scheme and were given pre- and post-tests before and at the end of the Year 1 trial period. The scheme was thus designated as a form of Randomised Control Trial.

In this seminar the Oxford team offer an analysis of the project as a whole, drawing not only on data gathered during its implementation but also on additional data derived from interviews with a number of participants.

In particular we look at:

• the 'policy origins' of the entire scheme, the ways in which it emerged out of: the development of teaching schools, the 'closing the gap' objective of the Coalition government; the desire to increase research capacity within the teaching workforce; as well as other elements;

• the extent to which the overall methodology can indeed be described as a Randomised Control Trial. Although this was a very large scale initiative, the actual interventions were each carried out with relatively small numbers of pupils in a very diverse range of contexts;

• the extent to which evidence emerged from the project to suggest that teachers in schools were becoming increasingly research-literate and that the 'school-led system' was developing research capacity through engagement in a scheme such as this;

• the research ethics issues raised by such a large scale randomised controlled trial, and in particular the decisions around which interventions to include and continue, which leads on to an argument for a principle of educational equipoise.

Professor David Putwain (Edge Hill University) gives a talk for the Department of Education public seminar series. A relatively common motivational strategy used by teachers, and others, prior to high-stakes examinations (such as the GCSE), is to communicate to students the negative consequence of failure for one’s subsequent life trajectory. This could include access to subsequent forms of education and training, entry to the labour market, and the impact on one’s sense of self-worth. When used in this way, to highlight the negative consequences of failure, and how these can be avoided, these communications are referred to as fear appeals. In this seminar, I will attempt to unpick the use of fear appeals as a motivational strategy and address the fundamental question of whether they are effective or not. Drawing on some of the studies conducted with colleagues I will focus on two key aspects: How fear appeals are understood by students and how they relate to key educational outcomes (including motivation, engagement and achievement).

Seminar looking at education in Sudan and other North African countries. This seminar examines the development of a National Learning Assessment in Sudan and reports on the findings of its first study. We know that National Learning Assessments can play an important role in demonstrating the efficiency of investments in education, help governments to monitor the effectiveness of educational interventions and policies, and address issues related to equity and to provision. It is largely through frequently repeated assessments of learning achievement that policy makers can tell the extent to which investments in education do in fact result in educational progress. Without such repeated measures there can be little understanding of trends in student learning outcomes and as such, robust evidence to guide policy and investment in education will remain elusive.

The first study sought to establish how well students had been taught to read and to carry out basic mathematical operations in the early years of schooling in Sudan. The achievements of Grade 3 students in Sudan are compared with children of a similar age and stage of schooling in 5 other Arabic speaking countries. The findings point to deep and worrying learning deficits across the region.

Professor Neil Selwyn, Professor in the Faculty of Education, Monash University, gives a talk for the Department of Education Public Seminars series. This seminar explores the ways in which digital technologies are now implicated in teachers’ work and labour. Drawing upon in-depth ethnographic studies of three Australian high schools, Neil will detail the ways in which teachers’ work is now enacted along digital lines – often in notably intensified, standardized and evidenced ways. However, these research findings also raise questions regarding the extent to which these digitisations can be said to constitute wholly ‘new’ labour conditions – pointing to continuities and disjunctures between teachers’ work with and without digital technology. As such, Neil will also consider the differentiated experiences of these conditions across teaching workforces. We conclude by considering how more equitable and/or empowering working conditions might be achievable through alternate uses of digital technology.