Stephen Gorard

Beng Huat See

Governments, local authorities, school leaders, and teachers all over the world want to improve the educational attainment and participation of all students, and to minimise any systematic differences in outcomes for social and economic groups. A particular concern is for those students from backgrounds that may objectively disadvantage them at school and beyond. However, considerable effort and money is currently being wasted on policies, practices and interventions that have very little hope of success, and that may indeed endanger the progress that is being made otherwise. The poor quality of much education research evidence, coupled with an unwillingness among users of evidence to discriminate appropriately between what we know and do not know, means that opportunities are being missed. At a time of reduced public spending it is important that proposed interventions are both effective and efficient. Overcoming Disadvantage in Education is unique in the way that it: Shows where the solutions to underachievement and poverty lie combines primary(new), secondary (official) and published (review) evidence distinguishes between those possible causes of underachievement that are largely fixed for individuals, and those that are modifiable. There are evidence-informed ways forward in handling under-achievement and increasing social justice in education. This book shows which the more likely approaches are, and where further work could yield further benefits. This book will be a key text for students, developing academic researchers and supervisors in the social sciences, and for those research users charged with improving educational outcomes.

Overcoming Disadvantage in Education

Emma Smith

Patrick White

Issues concerning the supply of teachers are of perennial concern to both policy-makers and researchers in the world of education. This trenchant and wide-ranging study not only provides major new research findings but also a re-interpretation of extant data. Combining qualitative and (very extensive) quantitative research, Teacher Supply provides a rigorous and iconoclastic treatment of issues relating to the recruitment, quality, training, and retention of teachers throughout the developed world and offers important recommendations for the future.

The Key Issues

Teacher Supply

Nadia Siddiqui

The Trials of Evidence-based Education explores the promise, limitations and achievements of evidence-based policy and practice, as the attention of funders moves from a sole focus on attainment outcomes to political concern about character-building and wider educational impacts. Providing a detailed look at the pros, cons and areas for improvement in evidence-based policy and practice, this book includes consideration of the following: What is involved in a robust evaluation for education. The issues in conducting trials and how to assess the trustworthiness of research findings. New methods for the design, conduct, analysis and use of evidence from trials and examining their implications. What policy-makers, head teachers and practitioners can learn from the evidence to inform practice. In this well-structured and thoughtful text, the results and implications of over 20 studies conducted by the authors are combined with a much larger number of studies from their systematic reviews, and the implications are spelled out for the research community, policy-makers, schools wanting to run their own evaluations, and for practitioners using evidence.

Beng Huat See

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