Drawing on the conclusions of five research projects commissioned as part of a wider initiative, BERA has published a statement on the position of education as an academic discipline. Celebrating its outstanding impact and outputs and that the “quality of much education research is world leading”, BERA also acknowledges the challenges it faces, from “significant structural inequalities to a deterioration in working conditions for the majority of education researchers over time”.
Solutions to these challenges require collaboration and collective effort from governments, funders, university leadership, educational researchers, and organisations such as BERA. This statement and evidence upon which it is based are designed to stimulate that collaboration.
BERA launched the Education: The State of the Discipline initiative in 2019 to offer a comprehensive account of the state of education as an academic discipline, as a field of practice, and as a pivotal element of social and political policy across the four nations of the UK. By providing stakeholders with research evidence, the initiative aimed to empower them in their advocacy for education research and education researchers.
