Such concerns gave rise to an English in Education

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Special interest group conference, ‘Exploring Issues in English, Education and Social Justice: Current Trends in Research and Practice’, hosted by the University of Bedfordshire in June 2023. Contributors explored how current policy is enacted across the sector, and the impact of that enactment on both teachers and students. This BERA Blog special issue was inspired by that conference. The writers draw on recent scholarship to explain the state of the subject as they see it now and the challenges inherent; and begin to explore how English policy might be conceived in the future.

In his blog post, Robert Eaglestone builds on his influential article for the Impact saudi arabia email list journal, and invites us to reflect on English as a discipline. He argues that disciplines are not collections of inert ‘facts’ but are, instead, continuing conversations, transforming over time. As they grow, disciplines create ‘signature pedagogies’ and threshold concepts of a subject, and these bear implicit philosophies of knowledge appropriate to the subject. English too has developed through its own complex and profound tradition of thought. Eaglestone urges us to consider the deep understanding, or ‘disciplinary consciousness’, which comes from grasping concepts which arise as we teach English, and to ask searching questions of policy and other framings, and how we are using them.