IOE Insights

The IOE was saddened to hear of the passing of Gunther Kress, Professor of Semiotics and Education, on 20 June 2019.

A widely regarded academic, linguist, semiotician and social theorist, Professor Kress was a pioneer of critical linguistics, critical discourse analysis, and social semiotics.

In this 2011 interview, Professor Kress spoke about the kind of role semiotics and education can play when it comes to making meaning.

He's joined by Sophia Diamantopolou, a student at the time of recording, and currently a Senior Teaching Fellow at the UCL Centre for Applied Linguistics.

#weareioe #UCLMinds

IOE Professorial Lecture:

Speaker: Professor Douglas Bourn is Co-Director of the Development Education Research Centre (DERC), IOE

Lecture respondent: Dr Mary Stiasny, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) and Chief Executive of University of London Worldwide.

Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director, IOE

The relationship between learning and social change has been a repeated theme in the work of leading thinkers on education over the past century, from John Dewey to Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux.

Professor Bourn discusses themes that relate directly to current social and political debates concerning education, citizenship and social justice, including the rise of fake news and the possible dangers posed by Brexit. He argues that we urgently need a more prominent discussion about the social purpose of education and the relationship of learning and skills to securing more globally just societies.

#IOELectures

IOE Professorial Public Lecture:

In recent years ideas about education have polarised: on one side are those stressing facts and disciplines; on the other, those committed to the encouragement of learners to make their own meaning. By offering a fine-grained account of pedagogic practice and subject knowledge, recent developments in philosophy provide a means of reconfiguring the issue in a manner that transcends this simple opposition.

Speakers include:

Professor Jan Derry, Co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy at the IOE

Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director at the IOE

Respondent: Professor Michael Young, Professor of Education at the IOE

#IOELectures

IOE Professorial Public Lecture:

In this lecture Professor Alissa Goodman will talk about her research on inequalities, showing how both cross-sectional and longitudinal data are being used to illuminate and address some of the major social and policy questions of our time.

Speakers include:

Alissa Goodman, Professor of Economics and Director of the Centre for Longitudinal Studies in the IOE's Department of Social Science

Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director, IOE

Respondent: Dr Lindsey Macmillan, Reader in Economics in the IOE's Department of Social Science

#IOELectures

IOE Professorial Public Lecture:

Speaker: Professor Alice Sullivan, IOE

Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director, IOE

Respondent: Professor Heather Joshi, IOE

In this public lecture Professor Alice Sullivan talks about social class and gender differences in educational attainment and social mobility.

She addresses the roles of children's home backgrounds and their schooling, and explains the importance of 'cultural capital' and the power of reading for pleasure.

#IOELectures

IOE Public Debates:

The early years have now got the recognition they deserve as a pivotal stage in our lives. It’s one that lasts a lifetime – setting us up, or not, to face the joys, but also the challenges, trials and tribulations to come. With that recognition has come a whole host of initiatives, from, in England, the Early Years Foundation Stage, to interventions on the ‘home learning environment’ and early years workforce.

In the process, the early years is being re-shaped around the project of ‘school readiness’ and there is growing interest in measuring early years outcomes. Nationally, standardised assessments are moving steadily but determinedly down the age range, while international comparisons of early years attainment are coming on stream via the OECD’s ‘Baby PISA’ survey. These developments have not gone unchallenged, with many commentators voicing concerns about the over-formalisation of provision for young children.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of the attention now being paid to this phase and the environment it has created for our children’s formative years? Do we have the workforce and services to deliver policy as it stands, let alone a different vision? And what should be our longer-term goals for the form and ethos of the early years phase?

Speakers include:

- Jan Dubiel, Independent Early Childhood Education (ECE) Consultant

- June O’Sullivan MBE, Chief Executive at the London Early Years Foundation

- Dominic Wyse, Professor in Early Childhood and Primary Education, UCL Institute of Education

- Helen Ward, Reporter in Early Years and Primary Education at TES

- Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director of UCL Institute of Education

#IOEDebates

IOE Professorial Public Lecture:

Why are educational inequalities so powerful and resistant to change? And how might they be challenged?

This talk explores how systemic injustices marginalise, oppress and exclude young people through formal and informal educational systems and settings.

About the Speaker

Professor Louise Archer at the Department of Education, Practice and Society, UCL Institute of Education

Louise Archer is the Karl Mannheim Professor of Sociology of Education at UCL Institute of Education. She is co-chair (with Jessica Ringrose) of the Centre for Sociology of Education and Equity (CSEE).

#IOELectures

IOE Public Debates:

Is “comprehensivisation” the answer to the slow pace of progress in widening access to the most prestigious universities, or can we improve our current structures to ensure that all young people have the opportunity to study at a university that matches their talents and aspirations?

Speakers included:

•Nick Hillman, Director, Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI)

•Anna Vignoles, Professor of Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge

•Paul Jump, Features and Opinion Editor, Times Higher Education (THE)

•Claire Fox, Academy of Ideas Director

Chair: Professor Becky Francis is the Director of UCL Institute of Education.

#IOEDebates

IOE Public Debates:

Could we hold a mirror up to teaching practice and school performance, and support their improvement, more effectively than we do now? What might that look like if we started from a blank page?

The way in which schools are held to account in England, based in inspection and performance indicators that lead off from regular high-stakes testing of pupils, is highly contentious.

The criticisms are many and varied: that the measures don’t provide a valid picture of school performance; that they skew schools’ priorities, in particular, turning schools into ‘exam factories’; that they lead to gaming; that they harm pupil and teacher well-being; that they are contributing to the teacher supply crisis.

Meanwhile, the picture has been further complicated by the advent of multi-academy trusts and questions about the extent to which the accountability system reflects this new terrain. Current measures are intended to drive up standards by providing accountability and transparency. And there is no question that professions and providers need to be held to account.

Speakers included:

- Geoff Barton, ASCL General Secretary

- Nick Brook, Deputy General Secretary, National Association of Head Teachers

- Ed Dorrell, Deputy Editor and Head of Content at the Tes

- Natalie Perera, Executive Director and Head of Research, Education Policy Institute

- Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director of UCL Institute of Education

This #IOEDebates took place on 13 February 2019.

IOE Public Debates:

The majority view would appear to be that building pupils’ subject knowledge is vital but that there is also room for paying attention to skills and other aspects of young people’s development. The more nuanced question seems to be what kind of curricular diet – and associated pedagogy and assessment – will best develop young people’s wisdom, which is surely our main goal.

In this debate we bring together a range of perspectives to mull over the question of how to develop pupils who are wise – knowledgeable, but also empathetic, thoughtful, reflective, self-aware and able to show good judgement.

Speakers include:

- Peter Hyman, Co-Director of Big Education and Co-founder of School 21

- David Lambert, Professor of Geography Education, UCL Institute of Education

- Cat Scutt, Director of Education and Research, Chartered College of Teaching

- Tony Sewell, CEO, Generating Genius

- Chair: Professor Becky Francis, Director, UCL Institute of Education

#IOEDebates