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Progressive early years curricula and educational equity: Lessons from the Welsh Foundation Phase

What happens when a nationally mandated, play-based early years curriculum meets the realities of schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities? The Welsh Foundation Phase (FP) offers a...

BeeProud: Exploring LGBTQIA+ young people’s wellbeing experiences

LGBTQIA+ young people face significant discrimination in the UK, reporting higher levels of school bullying and poorer mental health outcomes than their heterosexual and cisgender peers (Wilson &...

The ½¿É«µ¼º½ Blog: Highlights of 2025

½¿É«µ¼º½ Blog end of year highlights

Snow-dusted salutations and tinsel-tinged tidings to all our readers, authors, curators and guest editors around the globe. In this, the ½¿É«µ¼º½ Blog’s tenth anniversary year, I look back over the...

‘People feel embarrassed or intimidated to use the toilets’: Teachers, parents and pupils’ perceptions of school toilets

School toilets, globally, have been sites of bullying, vandalism and embarrassment, and, more recently, have been at the centre of equalities debates (see for example Lundblad et al., 2010). In...

A question of selfhood construction: Artificial intelligence and social injustice

Artificial Intelligence in educational research and practice

Placing selfhood construction at the centre of social justice provides a useful lens to view emerging ethical debates around Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED) and beyond. Selfhood...

Climate justice in the classroom: Opportunities and affordances

Recent years have seen mounting arguments from researchers, campaigners and educators for greater focus on climate justice in climate and sustainability education (Howard-Jones et al., 2021;...

‘I don’t quite belong’: Working-class students’ experiences of being first-in-family to attend university

This blog post reflects on findings from the ½¿É«µ¼º½ Brian Simon fellowship fund research project Far away from the ivory tower to highlight some of the issues that might be experienced by those...

Lifelong learning: Sustaining social transformation through and beyond higher education

Plymouth Marjon University’s archive contains a wealth of materials from its history, which spans almost two centuries. Before doing primary research, the Brian Simon Research fellowship fund...

The ‘comfy slippers’ of university as places of safety

For students who are the first in their family to attend university, the transition involves navigating uncharted territory. Students often transform university spaces, initially impersonal and...

Disadvantage not destiny: Using generational research in university archives to track social mobility

This blog post was inspired by the ½¿É«µ¼º½ Brian Simon Research Project that undertook historical educational research and explored the impact of higher education (HE) on ‘disadvantaged’...

Editorial: Far away from the ivory tower

This special issue shares findings from research supported by a historical educational research to explore the impact of higher education (HE) on first-in-family students, some of whom...

Far away from the ivory tower

This special issue shares findings from research supported by a ½¿É«µ¼º½ Brian Simon fellowship fund grant to do historical educational research to explore the impact of higher education (HE) on...