Since the 2016 EU Referendum, two narratives have been prominent in the public debate surrounding the outcome of the vote. The first narrative sees Brexit as a revolt of the ‘economically left-behinds’, while the second narrative attributes Brexit to the resurgence of an English nationalism. In this lecture, Tak Wing Chan uses data from a large scale and nationally representative survey to evaluate these two narratives. He considers whether Brexit support is associated with neighbourhood depriva...
Jan 24, 2020•1 hr 3 min
Peter Tabichi is a science teacher and Franciscan Brother who gives away 80% of his monthly income to help the poor. Thanks to Peter's dedication, hard work and passionate belief in his students, his poorly-resourced school in remote rural Kenya is now winning national and international science competitions. Peter was awarded the 2019 Global Teacher Prize, a $US1 million award from the Varkey Foundation to a teacher who has made an outstanding contribution to the profession. Peter teaches at Ker...
Jan 17, 2020•57 min
For a long time, the ‘grand narrative’ in education and social policy has been the pursuit of social mobility – breaking the link between an individual’s background and where they get to in life. Over the past year, the political rhetoric has changed, with the emergence of the cause of social justice as the new proposed guiding principle for public policy choices. But there’s been a certain ‘fuzziness’ around what exactly is meant by each of the two projects – with little attention paid to downw...
Dec 16, 2019•1 hr 16 min
Professor Becky Francis, Dr Becky Taylor and Dr Antonina Tereshchenko examine research from the Best practice in grouping students project. Their book, ‘Reassessing 'Ability' Grouping: Improving Practice for Equity and Attainment’ looks at wider political debates on pupils' social backgrounds and educational attainment. Its chapters discuss the practicalities of classroom practice, and recommend improved practice to maximise pupil outcomes, experiences and equity. This is a recording from the bo...
Dec 13, 2019•23 min
The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is a major international study of the reading, mathematics and science skills of 15-year-olds across the world. The results are closely watched by journalists, educationalists and policymakers across the globe. Yet there have been recent criticisms of the methodology used by PISA, and debate about whether the results can really be trusted. With the latest PISA results released on December 3rd 2019, this public lecture taking place th...
Dec 06, 2019•1 hr 10 min
A lecture by Nobel Prize Winner, Professor Carl Wieman, Stanford University that took place on Wednesday 25 September 2019 at UCL Institute of Education (IOE). About the lecture: Guided by experimental tests of theory and practice, science and engineering has advanced rapidly in the past 500 years. Guided primarily by tradition and dogma, science education meanwhile has remained largely medieval. Research on how people learn is now revealing much more effective ways to teach and evaluate learnin...
Oct 07, 2019•1 hr 33 min
From the archives: in 2011 Vivian Hill spoke about the contemporary issues affecting educational psychology and disadvantaged and disabled children, focusing on her work and research with supporting inclusive learning environments in schools for children. Vivian also discusses research that finds conceptual differences in the way children on the autism spectrum view friendships compared to their peers, and the lack of cultural understanding when it comes to assessing abilities and intelligence. ...
Sep 13, 2019•11 min
From the archives: in 2011, Professor Michael Reiss spoke to the IOE about his interest in science education research, sex education and bio-ethics. He's in conversation with Tamjid Mujtaba, who is now a Senior Research Associate and happens to work alongside Professor Reiss here at the IOE. The pair discuss why many students appear to lose interest in studying science after leaving school. #weareioe #UCLMinds
Aug 30, 2019•12 min
From the archives: in 2011, Dominic Wyse, Professor of Early Childhood and Primary Education, joined IOE alumna Melissa Beeko for a conversation about his research interests, which include the understanding of literacy and language in early years and primary. #weareioe #UCLminds
Aug 23, 2019•10 min
From the archives: Ann Phoenix, Professor of Psychosocial Studies spoke to the IOE about her research interests, which include motherhood, social identities, young people, radicalisation and gender. Professor Phoenix is joined by Catherine Walker, who at the time was a PhD candidate, and is now a Research Associate at the Sustainable Consumption Institute. The pair discuss inequalities, education and life paths. #weareioe #UCLMinds
Aug 16, 2019•13 min
From the archives: Elaine Unterhalter, Professor of Education and International Development spoke to the IOE about her research into gender, education and poverty. She's joined by Kate Greany, who is currently the Head of Economic Development in Kenya for the UK government's Department for International Development. #weareioe #UCLminds
Aug 09, 2019•12 min
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...
Jul 30, 2019•12 min
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....
Jul 15, 2019•1 hr 13 min
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 C...
Jul 05, 2019•1 hr 9 min
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 Macmi...
Jul 04, 2019•1 hr 13 min
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
Jun 26, 2019•55 min
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 proj...
Jun 26, 2019•1 hr 14 min
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 o...
May 20, 2019•1 hr 4 min
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, Featur...
Apr 26, 2019•1 hr 9 min
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 perform...
Feb 20, 2019•1 hr 10 min
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 pup...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 12 min
2018 Global Teacher Prize Lecture. Art at the heart of education: why you cannot be truly educated without the arts, and why their decline affects us all - Andria Zafirakou, MBE To experience the arts is to experience aspects of humanity which cannot easily be defined or understood in another context. In whatever medium it comes, the importance of ensuring young people have – to coin a phrase – access to the best that has been thought, and said, and created in the arts has never been more pressi...
Jan 14, 2019•1 hr 7 min
IOE Public Debates: What are Key Stage tests and national exams for – to support learning, certify competence, or sort pupils by ability? One answer is ‘all of the above’. But can our assessment system realistically do all of these things, simultaneously? There is the other question of whether we need all the formal tests and exams that we currently have, the number of which continues to expand, in the process prompting concerns among commentators and parents alike. And what about formative asse...
Nov 09, 2018•1 hr 15 min
IOE Public Debates: Young people’s poor sense of well-being has hit the headlines this year, with talk of crisis and a lot of soul-searching about why so many of our children seem to be so unhappy and ill at ease these days. Thankfully, serious mental health problems remain comparatively rare and it’s important to remember that childhood and the teenage years, in particular, have always been a difficult time of transition. But something else seems to be going on today, from an earlier age. Blame...
Oct 03, 2018•1 hr 17 min
An occasion to mark Professor Geoff Whitty’s long-standing association with the UCL Institute of Education (IOE) – from trainee teacher to Director Emeritus. We’ll be reflecting on Geoff’s time at the IOE and his contributions to the field of sociology of education as well as looking more broadly at the limits and possibilities for realising social justice in and through education.
Jul 18, 2018•2 hr 8 min
IOE Public Debates: We use maths in every aspect of our lives. We need numeracy at work, as citizens to make sense of economic news, as patients to understand risks, as consumers to work out the best deal; the list goes on. But it’s something that as a nation we’re not good at, and poor numeracy costs individuals and the UK dearly. And despite this, it remains acceptable to say – boast even – ‘I’m no good at maths’. Why do so many of us struggle with maths at school, and what can schools and par...
Jul 10, 2018•1 hr 17 min
Rob Webster, Maximising the Impact of Teaching Assistants (MITA) Lead and Researcher talks about why he joined Twitter, his initial approaches to using the platform, and the professional and personal benefits. Visit our website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ioe_london Follow Rob on Twitter: https://twitter.com/maximisingTAs
Jun 29, 2018•5 min
IOE Public Debates: The rise of neuroscience within education, as in other spheres, has been dramatic, so much so that accusations of ‘neuro mania’ and warnings about ‘neuro myths’ have become commonplace. Are we correct to pin our hopes on this field as a means of improving learning and attainment? In this debate we bring together leading neuroscientists and educationalists to reflect on the ‘state of the art’ in (educational) neuroscience, future prospects for the field in providing insights i...
May 23, 2018•1 hr 16 min
IOE Public Debates: This year the Warnock Report turns 40 years old. How far have we come and where should we go next? The Warnock Report marked a pivotal change in the provision of education for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) – encouraging these children’s inclusion in mainstream classes, and introducing the system of ‘statementing’ that set out a child’s needs and entitlement to additional support. But much has changed in the intervening years – not least the i...
May 09, 2018•1 hr 25 min
IOE Public Debates: There’s a lot of talk at the moment about robots and artificial intelligence and how they are bringing about a ‘fourth industrial revolution’ in which occupations and the labour market, right up to the top professions like medicine and law, will be transformed. In this context, what kind of education will young people need to prosper, and can our current curriculum and testing regime deliver it? The debate over whether schools should focus first and foremost on developing pup...
Apr 25, 2018•1 hr 15 min
