Picture This visual literacy research initiative, which invites young people across the country to see, think, and create differently – using art not just as a subject, but as a powerful language for learning, expression, and connection.
Featured Project
Picture This: The Robson Orr Visual Literacy Research Initiative
Director's Welcome
I am pleased to welcome you to the Department’s research community.
Our research addresses critical questions in education, spanning learning, teaching, policy, and practice across the life-course.
Our work is organised around three broad themes:
Within these themes, our centres and research groups bring together diverse expertise and provide a structure for collaboration and research development across the Department. This structure reflects both the breadth of our research and the strength of our interdisciplinary collaborations, and underpins our position as one of the world’s leading departments of education.
A defining feature of the Department is its diverse and inclusive research community, bringing together colleagues at all career stages. Their research engages with broader societal challenges, including questions of equity, inclusion, and social justice, while also informing educational policy and practice.
We also engage actively with external partners and stakeholders, including funders, policy makers, practitioners, and a wider range of organisations. This ensures that our research remains relevant, influential, and impactful beyond academia.
Professor Gabriel Stylianides, PhD FAcSS
Director for Research
photo (c) John Cairns
Research Themes & Groups
Our cutting-edge research covers all aspects of learning across the lifespan – through early years, schooling, further and higher education, and into the workplace.
We pride ourselves on the excellence and collaboration that runs through all of our work and puts us at the forefront of the educational debate.
photo (c) John Cairns
Research Centres
We have five specialist research centres in the Department.
Centre for Global Higher Education (CGHE)
We conduct research on global higher education, its inequalities and its futures. Supported by the UK’s ESRC, and hosted by the Oxford’s Department of Education, the centre is a partnership that brings together students and researchers from across the world.
Oxford University Centre for Educational Assessment (OUCEA)
We conduct research in a wide range of assessment issues, in different sectors and educational levels. We focus on the role of assessment in public policy and system-level change.
Rees Centre
We aim to improve the education, wellbeing and life outcomes of those who are, or have been supported by children’s social care services, with a focus on children in need, adoptive and special guardianship families and care experienced adults.
Centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance (SKOPE)
Our central aim is to examine the links between the acquisition and use of skills and knowledge, production and product strategies and economic performance – be it of individuals, organisations or countries.
Impact Stories
Designing Better Schools
Students and teachers from Northfleet Technology College talk about how the redesign of their school building has improved their learning as a result of our research.
Roads to Inclusion
Pilot study video for a research project exploring the use of technology in science tasks to help reduce the language barriers for Syrian refugees.
Self-regulation
Ted Melhuish explains why a child’s ability to self-regulate is one of the most important predictors of their later success in school and in life.
Research News
News
Department of Education recognised in Vice-Chancellor’s Awards shortlist
March 31, 2026
News
There is still time to apply for a part-time education programme
March 23, 2026
News
Department researchers receive Best Paper Awards from Comparative and International Education Society 2026
March 17, 2026
Explore Further
Impact
We generate impact within education policy and practice in the UK and beyond.
Research Podcasts
Listen to the latest podcasts about our research and teaching.
Oxford Review of Education
The Oxford Review of Education aims to publish important new work on educational topics of general interest in a form that is accessible to a broad educational readership.