Initiatives by successive governments to provide better access to higher education for young people from less-privileged backgrounds have failed according to Understanding Society, the world’s largest longitudinal study
New software has significant benefits for primary school children and their understanding of elementary physics, research shows. Studies funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) focused on what primary school children know when they begin studying physics, and how much they still have to learn. The studies looked at how much children understand about the movement of objects such as direction and speed.
Analysing 600 years of music, drilling down into population databases, understanding social unrest through digitised newspapers – these are just some of the new lines of research that the winners of the second Digging into Data Challenge.
New research suggests that far from disengaging young people from real life, virtual worlds can provide unique environments that can help them learn and negotiate new situations.
A more flexible approach to teaching methods and better community support could reduce school drop-out in high HIV-prevalence areas in sub-Saharan Africa.
Researchers funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) have developed a software toolkit that shows how such an approach sparks and sustains students’ interest in science.
The ESRC is pleased to announce that it is supporting five new projects in partnership with business which will continue to apply academic knowledge and thinking to business problems.
The ESRC is pleased to announce that it is supporting 15 new projects in partnership with civil society and public sector organisations, with the aim of applying academic knowledge and thinking to organisational challenges.
Science is not all about people in white lab coats blowing things up. Social science research gives a different picture. Social Science can answer questions on large issues facing society such as understanding factors affecting voting behaviour, how labour markets work and how effective schools are in educating our children.
New research, presented at a major international conference in London, demonstrates how inequality in education, skills and incomes reduces opportunity and undermines social cohesion. In education, for example, the social and ability mix of the school has a major impact on how well a child performs.