This paper aims to raise questions about the role that cultural capital might have to play in English schooling. With the term being used by both the Department for Education and the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted, the English schools' inspectorate) as a means of describing certain key characteristics of a school's curriculum, the…

In England and Scotland, the History National Curriculum avoids the prescription of specific content; expecting schools instead to devise a curriculum appropriate to their pupils within broad guidance. This means in both countries, teachers apparently have responsibility for constructing a curriculum: selecting content, sequencing learning and…

Entrenched compartmentalisation of curriculum subjects and 'teaching to the test' can leave students with limited understanding of the nature and interaction of disciplines. The necessity of developing future teachers' epistemic insight (EI) and equipping them with strategies to address the gaps between subjects has been pushed to the fore by…

England is experiencing a teacher recruitment and retention crisis which has only worsened since the COVID-19 pandemic. One-third of teachers leave before they have completed five years. This paper discusses the results of a small-scale study completed with six inner-London secondary teachers which focuses on their everyday experiences in these…

This paper examines three questions: (1) (How) Is democracy promoted in secondary schools in England? (2) How is the promotion of democracy understood in education and teacher education policy? and (3) To what extent does existing education policy benefit the promotion of democracy in schools in England? To explore these questions, we first…

Integrating research into teaching gives future practitioners the opportunity to inform and enhance their own professional capacities and practices with research. This study analyses integration practices currently employed by a sample of 124 university teachers delivering teacher education and education studies courses from three…

Although lessons about sexism can increase gender egalitarianism in children, teachers often shy away from discussing sensitive topics, such as sexism, in classrooms. We conducted two studies to examine why teachers may not discuss sexism. In a qualitative study with 20 primary school teachers, teachers reported not discussing sexism because of…

Drawing on conceptualisations of space, we explored the ways three beginning teachers in England experienced and developed agency during the first three years of their careers. We completed a series of interviews with the same three teachers during their year of Initial Teacher Education and subsequent two years as Early Career Teachers; a total…

This paper explores, grounded on life history interviews, the work of a set of fifteen teachers in England who self-identify as actively engaging with environmental issues and action at different school levels and across a wide range of subjects. One of the core aims of this paper was to construct, based on these teachers' voices and experiences,…

After the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NEU (2021) report states that one in three teachers plan to leave the profession in the next 5 years. As previous studies published by the DfE focusing on workload have not affected the wastage rate of the profession, there is something deeper at work which needs to be explored. A critical theory,…

There are few measures of teacher professional knowledge of reading comprehension, therefore little is known about the levels of teacher professional knowledge, their motivation and attitudes to teaching reading comprehension. The Knowledge, Behaviour and Attitudes Test for Reading Comprehension (KBAT-RC) was developed from a systematic literature…

The mental health and wellbeing of young people is increasingly a concern in schools. This study explores how English secondary school teachers perceive and engage with the concept of wellbeing. By asking teachers to reflect on their practice, we can draw out their relational experience and knowledge about wellbeing in the classroom. Twenty…

This arts-based research considers creativity in the professional lives of English teachers in a school in England within the context of a progressively performative education system. In addition, it explores how found poetry can represent participants' voices in an illuminating and authentic manner. The teachers who participated in the study were…

In this paper, we deploy data collected through a Q study with educators in south-west England. The mixed methodology involved the two stages of forced choice statement sorting by educator participants and subsequent factor analysis. Through abductive analyses, four views regarding aspirations and young people in peripheral communities are…

Two commonly used approaches to capturing information about teachers are random probability surveys and teacher panels. This paper reviews the strengths and limitations of these two approaches in the context of capturing information about the teacher workforce. A case study is then presented drawing upon recent teacher survey data collections in…