This article starts with a comment on John White's article published in 2019 in the "London Review of Education," 17 (3), entitled 'The end of powerful knowledge?', and particularly on the point made about specialized knowledge and its relation to powerful knowledge. It is argued here that it is important to clarify the distinction…

The data-rich articles in this special issue invite readers to consider how grammar and multimodality enact social practices. In particular, they propose a reconceptualization of grammar, moving beyond an autonomous system of items and combinatorial rules to demonstrate how grammar is an embodied resource for social interaction. In this…

The climate crisis raises questions such as: Why are corporations continuing to produce plastic for their products when more sustainable solutions are available? Does recycling make a difference? Can oil companies be "green" and "sustainable," as their ads claim? Why are factories, landfills, and extraction sites located where…

The need for change in the education system is obvious and overwhelming. But each stakeholder group has its own ideas about why the system is broken and how to fix it. Competing priorities, political inertia and diminishing budgets maintain the dysfunctional status quo. This essential text examines the underlying causes behind the key challenges…

Building on the insights of the first two publications in the Strengthening the Impact of Education Research series, this third and final report shifts the focus from policy makers to the field, exploring the pivotal role of knowledge intermediaries. These organisations facilitate engagement with research among policy makers and practitioners,…

This paper examines the value of embedding a systems-thinking lens in higher education research. A systems approach enables institutions to move beyond isolated interventions to explore the broader relationships and structures influencing learning and development by addressing the interconnected dimensions of people, processes, and technology. The…

The authors use the skilled trades shortage as a unique context to pilot transformative approaches to changing culture and practice around equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in recruitment, progression, and retention of previously-excluded student groups, focusing on gender. To demonstrate how this approach can help achieve the necessary rapid…

This integrative literature review offers a portrait of the "middle leader" in lower secondary school, emphasising practical insights. Initiated by a Danish case study, it shows the middle leader as a formally appointed teacher with an add-on responsibility for pedagogical development in collaboration with colleagues and management. By…

As educational settings in the United States become more diverse and uncertain, students need support in new and formative non-academic ways. To combat the deep inequalities that persist across the educational system, we need transformative leadership. Yet given rigid institutional rules, a legacy of structural barriers, and political attacks…

Extant chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard are currently able to converse with humans in natural language, demonstrating impressive linguistic responses. Or so it seems. I critically examine artificial intelligence systems such as these chatbots through examples of dialogue. When taking a systems view of AI, there is a vast and unique human culture…

By considering the interconnectedness of various elements, such as curriculum, instruction, assessment, and school organization, systems thinking provides a framework to understand the underlying patterns, feedback loops, and leverage points that shape educational outcomes. Frick's (1993) systems view of restructuring education supports the notion…

When multiple clients are collaboratively learning and training a shared model, incentives problems can arise. The clients may have different learning objectives and application domains, or they may be competitors whose participation in the learning system could reduce their competitive advantage. While collaborative learning is a powerful…

Purpose: Critical realism is an increasingly popular "lens" through which complex events, entities and phenomena can be studied. Yet detailed operationalisations of critical realism are at present relatively scarce. This study's objective here is built on existing debates by developing an open systems model of reality, a basis for…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning have become increasingly important in modern society and are poised to play an increasingly prominent role in education. This paper seeks to provide a theoretical framework for interrogating the integration of AI in education spaces. The paper argues that the eventual response of educators to…

Intended for researchers and clinical leaders, this article suggests that embedded program evaluation is a good fit with the desired features of practice-oriented research. The systematic nature of evaluation that is built into the operational workflow of a practice setting may increase the diversity of methods available to explore processes and…