Academics from the department were invited to present their research at a special education symposium hosted by Mike Kane MP (Shadow Schools Minister) at the House of Commons on Wednesday 28 February.The themes of the symposium, which attracted over 70 academics, legislators and stakeholders from across the UK and abroad, were evidence, equity and innovation.
Katharine Burn, Trevor Mutton and Ian Thompson attended the session and presented a paper based on research into the issues of poverty in teacher education, drawing on the work of the wider Poverty and Teacher Education research project in which they have been involved. The latter has led to a number of conference presentations and publications, including Thompson, McNicholl & Menter (2015) and papers in a special edition of the Journal of Education for Teachingpublished in 2016 (Burn & Childs; Burn et al.; Ellis et al.). The work also led to Ian Thompson’s membership of the BERA Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy (see Ivinson et al. 2017).
References
Thompson, I., McNicholl, J., & Menter, I. (2016). Student teachers’ perceptions of poverty and educational achievement. Oxford Review of Education, 42(2), 214-229.
Burn, K., & Childs, A. (2016). Responding to poverty through education and teacher education initiatives: a critical evaluation of key trends in government policy in England 1997-2015. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42(4), 387-403.
Burn, K., Mutton, T., Thompson, I., Ingram, J., McNicholl, J., & Firth, R. (2016). The impact of adopting a research orientation towards use of the Pupil Premium Grant in preparing beginning teachers in England to understand and work effectively with young people living in poverty. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42(4), 434-450.
Ellis, S., Thompson, I., McNicholl, J., & Thomson, J. (2016). Student teachers’ perceptions of the effects of poverty on learners’ educational attainment and well-being: perspectives from England and Scotland. Journal of Education for Teaching, 42(4), 483-499.
Ivinson G, Beckett L, Thompson I, Wrigley T, Egan D, Leitch R and McKinney S (2017) The Research Commission on Poverty and Policy Advocacy, London: British Educational Research Association. https://www.bera.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/100-160-BERA-Poverty-and-Policy-Advocacy-Final-Report.pdf