The intention of government to create a fully academised school system in England, whereby every academy will belong to a large multi-academy Trust (MAT), further erodes community engagement and accountability. This paper illustrates how the policy of academisation has enabled a top-down governance framework to emerge, replacing the power and…

Bullying remains a serious problem in schools in England and internationally despite the plethora of research, interventions and policies which aim to address it. The majority of research and interventions are based on a traditional approach where school bullying is constructed as involving a clear imbalance of power between individuals. Recently,…

Background: Inclusive research is widely accepted as an essential part of the process to democratise knowledge creation and dissemination. However, while peer review is an important part of academic publishing, the potential to include people with learning disabilities in this element of the research process has not previously been explored using…

Concerns have been raised about genomic studies of autism. Most recently, the Spectrum 10 K study was paused due to criticism from the autistic community. This situation raised important questions about how the autistic and autism communities perceive genomic research. The Personal Experiences of Autism and Perceptions of DNA-based-research study…

Debates surrounding youth participation in governance have permeated a range of fields in the last two decades. This commentary is predominately situated in education and civic participation domains, with sporting domains remaining largely under researched. Indeed, this research becomes sparser when considered in school physical education and…

This article reports findings from a study using arts-based and embodied (ABE) approaches to enhancing capacity for distributed leadership and explores the professional learning which took place as a result. The data reported in the article are from the UK research which formed part of the ENABLES (European Arts-Based Development of Distributed…

This article examines the nature of governance in the Co-operative Academies Trust which comprises academy schools in England sponsored by the Co-operative Group. The historical and political context for the study is summarised, the research methodology is explained, and data are drawn upon from one case study academy. Structural, organisational…

Family Group Conferences (FGCs) are a family-led approach to social care decision making. The fundamental philosophy behind FGCs is that families are the experts on their own situations and as such should lead decision-making. The model advocates that children should be at the centre of decisions about them and should be supported to have their…

Purpose: There is currently a focus on using networks to drive school and school system improvement. To achieve such benefits, however, requires school leaders actively support the mobilisation of networked-driven innovations. One promising yet under-researched approach to mobilisation is enabling distributed leadership to flourish. To provide…

The aim of the current study was to extend knowledge of occupational commitment by examining predictors at the teacher- and school-level. Several job resources hypothesized to be positively associated with occupational commitment were examined: helpful feedback, input in decision-making, teacher collaboration, and principal discipline support. The…

A necessary condition for a functioning democracy is the participation of its citizens, including its youth. This is particularly true for political participation in environmental decisions, because these decisions can have intergenerational consequences. In this article we examine young people's beliefs about one form of political…

'Well-being' is increasingly used in child rights discourses and early childhood education (ECE) policy contexts as a desirable outcome for young children. In spite of its ubiquitous use, however, child well-being remains largely under-theorised, thereby contributing to implicit understandings within policy arenas. This paper contributes to…

This chapter presents a heuristic of four principles for researchers, designers or school communities to use to facilitate collaborative engagement about school space. It first explains how each idea is derived from the literature and previous research. Then a practical example of the process in an English primary school is reported. Finally, a…

In this article we consider the rights of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities in England, introduced under the Children and Families Act 2014, within the context of the wider reforms made by the Act. Drawing primarily on key informant interviews conducted as part of an ESRC project on Autonomy, Rights and…

There has been increased recognition of the importance of hearing the views of children and young people in and from care about the services and decisions that affect their lives. The emphasis on young people's voices aims to give weight to, and raise awareness of, their experiences and outcomes, and the need for policy and practice improvements.…