Everyone knows that in the sentence “Jane is washing her”, the pronoun “her” cannot refer back to Jane. Over the last four decades, researchers have established that adults reject the interpretation of…
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Displaying 1351 - 1375 of 1813 articles
When McDonald’s came under sustained criticism from campaigners in the 1980s, the company responded by constructing a carefully crafted image of corporate social responsibility. It insisted that it cared…
Children’s character and well-being looks set to be a central education issue going into the 2015 general election. Getting out of the starting blocks in mid-December, Nicky Morgan, the secretary of state…
Teenagers’ opinions about when violence is acceptable or not can be influenced by the way they perceive men and women and the relationships between them. Simply telling young people that violence is wrong…
Any review of 2014 in education must examine a Trojan Horse bearing “British values”. The scandal that broke in April centred on the investigation of 21 Birmingham schools suspected of being involved in…
Revising for exams is a necessary evil. Ever since written university exams were first set in England by the Cambridge chemist William Farrish in about 1792, students have struggled to revise. And with…
Christmas is a time for nostalgia, a time where even the most hardened cynics among us might reflect on our Christmases past with a certain warmth. And there’s no better way to set aside the slings and…
The expansion of higher education in the UK has been driven by a political desire to increase economic growth and to promote social mobility at the same time by drawing more graduates from a larger pool…
Academics love games. We can’t resist playing them – but the Research Excellence Framework (REF) is our favourite. As the results of the UK’s 2014 assessment of university research are digested, academics…
For more than 200 years the histories of India and Britain have been closely intertwined. Forged in the age of the empire, the bond between our two nations is nonetheless one that has become mutually enriching…
Research assessment is only partly reliable as an indicator of the real quality of the work going on in higher education. It has a dual character. On one hand it is rooted in material facts and objective…
With Christmas not far off, universities will be hoping for some early presents in the form of good results in the UK’s long-awaited assessment of the quality of university research. Although the funding…
It isn’t until Episode 7 of the certified podcast sensation Serial, that listeners learn about the show’s silent partner. Quietly, and with little fuss, the University of Virginia Innocence Project has…
For the first time, the “impact” of academic research on the wider world has been included in a large-scale assessment of the quality of university research, which has just been published. One-fifth of…
It is a little more than two years since the education campaigner – and now Nobel laureate – Malala Yousafzai was almost killed. In Peshawar many more potential Malalas have now died. The people of Pakistan…
Think of a researcher measuring the trajectory of a laser beam in a university physics lab or a history professor digging through a church’s long-lost archives and their work can often feel far removed…
In the last few months the UK’s two main political parties have entered into an apparent bidding war over which of them can elevate the teaching of character highest on their educational agendas before…
Being able to communicate effectively in a foreign language is a challenge faced by many of us. If you’re a newcomer to a country, conveying a message in a language that is not your mother tongue is often…
Barely one month after the current government was elected in 2010, the secretary of state for education Michael Gove announced the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England. Now, only a few…
The number of university students in China, including those in part-time higher adult education, expanded from 12.3m students in 2000 to 34.6m in 2013. China has become an exceptional example of increasing…
Lying is often seen as bad behaviour in children. Fairy tales and folk stories, from Aesop’s Peter who cried wolf to Washington’s cherry tree tell children to be honest and never lie. But what can we do…
Historical prestige is not the only reason why British universities do well at attracting international students – but it helps. Victorian antecedents hint at continuity and esteem. Strong teaching, good…
The education of children who speak more than one language is being used as part of a wider debate about immigration just months before the UK’s 2015 general election. But there is surprisingly little…
The teachers of tomorrow should be eager to prepare for “your future, their future”, according to the National College for Teaching and Leadership’s new teacher-training recruitment campaign. Sadly they…
As higher education has gradually become more commercialised, universities are getting used to employing professional marketers to help develop and manage their reputations and brands. But while the sector…