Engagement and Events
Upcoming Seminars
Agenda-setting for selective schooling: A Swedish case study on the policy reframing of comprehensive education
Education Research and Policy Hub Seminar
Presenter: Jonathan Lilliedahl (Linnaeus University)
Chair: Dr Sonia Exley (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Abstract: This seminar examines why and how selective institutions and elite secondary schooling have acquired legitimacy within education systems committed to egalitarian principles, focusing on the changing Swedish educational landscape. Sweden’s shift from a historically comprehensive model towards market-oriented reforms, including elite educational programmes, provides an illuminating context for exploring the tension between equality and excellence in publicly supported education. I demonstrate how policy discourses, governance arrangements, and micropolitical processes have reconceptualised notions of comprehensive education and specialised parallel tracking in relation to discourses of educational marketisation. Drawing on the Multiple Streams Framework, the analysis explores how issues of selectivity and specialisation have been placed on the policy agenda through the interaction of problem, policy, and political streams. Specifically, it shows how policy entrepreneurs and cross-sectoral coalitions have, at critical junctures, coupled perceived educational problems with preferred policy solutions within favourable political contexts to advance reform. The Swedish case provides the foundation for a forthcoming comparative study with England and beyond, designed to examine broader European and global developments in the incorporation of selective mechanisms and elite programmes into the governance of public education.
Presenter Bio: Jonathan Lilliedahl is Associate Professor of Education at Linnaeus University, Sweden, and Visiting Senior Fellow in the Department of Social Policy at LSE. His research focuses on education policy and governance in comparative perspective, with particular attention to school choice mechanisms, admissions policies, and the regulation of schools with a specialism. He is currently editing Critical Perspectives on Specialist Schools (Policy Press, forthcoming 2027) and developing papers on policymaking around elite schooling, the methodological application of the Multiple Streams Framework, and school leaders’ enactment of policy governance.
Attend in person- OLD 2.21
8 December 2025
Long-term impacts and sustainability of a secondary-level comprehensive public school reform in Peru
Speaker: Dr Alan Sánchez (Young Lives in Oxford)
16 June 2025
Unpacking faith-based provision. Implications for the pluralist case on publicly-funded religious schools
Speaker: Dr Clara Fontdevila (University of Glasgow)
12 May 2025
Beyond the Paycheck: Small Class Sizes, Wellbeing Perks, and Work-Life Balance Can Attract Teachers
Speaker: Burak Sonmez, University College London
10 March 2025
Systemic Consequences of Private Schooling Growth: An in-depth investigation in Nepal, and broader implications
Speaker: Dr Priyadarshani Joshi (UNESCO)
17 February 2025
Education, Economics & Politics of Youthquakes
Speaker: Professor M Niaz Asadullah (University of Reading)
27 January 2025
Citizen Engagement and Social Accountability: A new reform agenda of International Organizations?
Speaker: Professor Gita Steiner-Khamsi (Teachers College, Columbia University)
9 December 2024
Reparations in the Ruins of Development
Speaker: Professor Arathi Sripakash (University of Oxford)
11 November 2024
Who Polarises? Who Targets? Parties’ Educational Speech over the Long Run
Speaker: Professor Jane Gingrich (University of Oxford)
28 October 2024
The Influence of National Contexts on the Population Education Transition (PET) Curve: A Look at the Education-Chronic Disease Gradient
Speaker: Dr William C Smith (University of Edinburgh)
7 October 2024
Bureaucratic Selection and Politics: Evidence from Teachers in Brazil
Speaker: Dr Emmerich Davies (Brown University)
21 May 2024
Crisis narratives as an instrument of the global governance of education
Speaker: Dr. Maren Elfert, Senior Lecturer in International Education, King's College London.
Professor Anne West gives keynote address
Professor Anne West gave the key note address at the “Westminster Education Forum Policy Conference: Next steps for England’s school system” on 5th November 2025.
Her presentation was entitled: “The School System in England: Current State of Play and the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill”. Read more here.
Dr Mobarak appointed lead editor for WYoE
Dr Mobarak Hossain has been appointed as an incoming lead editor for the World Yearbook of Education (WYoE), a prestigious annual publication by Routledge that critically examines key developments in educational policy and practice worldwide. Established in 1965, the WYoE offers cutting-edge and internationally comparative perspectives on major issues in the field of education.
Understanding Education Privatisation in Comparative Perspective
Dr Sonia Exley gave an invited talk on 21stFebruary 2025 at Université Paris Cité titled ‘Understanding Education Privatisation in Comparative Perspective’. This talk was part of a wider colloquium on the international challenges related to the privatisation from a comparative perspective. Read more here.
Visitors to LSE from the Chinese Education Department of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission
On 6thDecember 2024 Dr Deborah Outhwaite and Dr Sonia Exley hosted a delegation of visitors to LSE from the Chinese Education Department of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission. During this meeting the delegation discussed several aspects of school-based and higher education in the UK.
What makes a good school?
Dr Sonia Exley talks about how parents experience school choice and how they go about choosing schools on a BBC Radio 4 programme, released on 16 October 2023.
Listen hereDr Sonia Exley interviewed by TIME magazine about Educational policy changes in South Korea
Dr Sonia Exley spoke to Koh Ewe from TIME magazine about new policy changes in South Korea which are intended to reduce families’ need for spending on private supplementary tutoring outside of school.
Read more here.
Data from Prof Lucinda Platt referenced in Education Select Committee Session
The 21 March 2023 session saw the Education Committee focus on Support for Childcare and Early Years. In response to a question on the long-term impacts of late intervention on SEND children, Mary Mulvey-Oates, early years project manager at Contact, referenced data from Prof Lucinda Platt. She highlighted how disabled children entering primary were twice as likely not to have friends, and this carried through to social exclusion in later life.
Leverhulme Major Research Fellows
Congratulations to Professor Anne West who has been awarded a Major Research Fellowship by the Leverhulme Trust.
The fellowship will cover a two-year period and will begin in September 2023. Professor West will work on a new research project entitled "School admissions and school choice in comparative perspective". The main outcome of the research project will be a monograph published by Routledge.
Read more hereGovernment policies have fragmented the UK state secondary school landscape
Academisation was designed to give schools in England more autonomy and headteachers more freedoms, with the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government elected in 2010 stating that "greater autonomy to all schools" was "an absolute priority for this Government". This push towards academies, however, has resulted in a more complex and unequal system, Anne West’s research reveals in LSE Research for the World. Read here
Archive of Education focused events
End of year Eduhub and MSc ISPP Education Stream roundtable event
10th June 2024, Internal event for LSE students and staff only.
Event to reflect on evolving identities as education researchers and any challenges and problems we are currently facing in our education research.
Global innovations transforming education
Hosted by the Centre for Economic Performance and the Department of Social Policy on 6 June 2024
Speakers: Amy Ellis-Thompson, Lucy Heller, David Cervera, Luz Rello
Chair: Ismael Sanz Labrador
A policy panel and discussion focusing on the innovative strategies and policies driving educational advancements globally. From cutting-edge technology to impactful reforms, the panel will explore diverse approaches to shaping the future of education.
Getting schools to work better: insights and reflections from China and India
Hosted by the School of Public Policy on 21 March 2024
This event launches the book Getting Schools to Work Better: Educational Accountability and Teacher Support in India and China by Yifei Yan.
Discussant: Dr Mobarak Hossain
Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan
Chair: Dr Shuang Chen
Watch the video or listen to the podcast
EduHub and MSc ISPP Education Stream roundtable discussion
On 19 March 2024, Our 2023/24 cohort of MSc students on the ISPP Education Stream shared their dissertation plans and took part in a broad discussion about different methods, theories and approaches in education research.
Intergenerational educational mobility during the twentieth century in 77 low- and middle-income and 15 high-income countries
Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 14 March 2024
Presenter: Dr Mobarak Hossain
Education or Exclusion? The challenges and tensions between school exclusions and children’s rights
Hosted by the Department of Social Policy and the Education Research and Policy Hub on 7 February 2024
Speakers: Professor Feyisa Demie, Mathew Purchase KC, Dan Rosenberg, Kyann Zhang
Chair: Dr Sonia Exley
This panel brings together researchers and education professionals to question the ongoing issues regarding school exclusions, and the implications for governance, policy and practice.
View the presentation slides here
Multicultural education competence of preservice teachers in the Netherlands: the role of previous and current interethnic contact
Education Research and Policy Hub seminar, 4 May 2023
Speaker: Dr Gert-Jan Veerman, Radboud University Nijmegen
Social and academic embeddedness as buffers against school closure effects on schooling outcomes
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 30 March 2023
Speaker: Professor Herman van de Werfhorst, European University Institute
When the burden lifts: The effect of school and day care re-openings on parent’s employment and life satisfaction
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 2 February 2023
Speaker: Professor Marita Jacob, University of Cologne
More driven? Experimental evidence on differences in cognitive effort by social origin
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 26 January 2023
Speaker: Dr Jonas Radl, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
What accounts for the recent 'tutoring revolution' in English education policy?
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 1 December 2022
Speaker: Dr Sonia Exley, Department of Social Policy, LSE
Diversity in Seminar and Study Groups and Student Outcomes: Evidence from SP401
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 17 March 2022
Speakers: Dr Berkay Ozcan and Valentina Contreras (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
PISA, Political Discourse, and Education Governance in the Age of Global Reference Societies
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 24 February 2022
Speaker: Professor Louis Volante (Brock University)
Policy capacity matters for education reforms: A diverging tale of two Brazilian states
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 3 February 2022
Speaker: Dr Yifei Yan (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?
Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 8 December 2021
This event took the form of an open conversation between Beverly Daniel Tatum and Minouche Shafik about Dr Tatum's book Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? And Other Conversations About Race, a perennial bestseller on the psychology of racism, which has been published in the UK for the first time this year.
Speaker: Dr Beverly Tatum
Chair: Baroness Minouche Shafik
Tracking system in education and inequalities. A longitudinal analysis of two school reforms in Switzerland
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 25 November 2021
Speaker: Professor Georges Felouzis (University of Geneva)
The Positive Effect of Women’s Education on Fertility in Low-Fertility China
International Social and Public Policy Seminar hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 4 November 2021
Speaker: Dr Shuang Chen (Department of Social Policy, LSE)
A New Global Purpose for Education?
Hosted by the Department of Social Policy on 24 May 2021
Speakers: Suchetha Bhat, Tom Fletcher, Valerie Hannon, Andreas Schleicher, Vishal Talreja
Chair: Dr Amelia Peterson
Education is a national endeavour, but with our growing interdependence, is it time we acknowledge it has a global purpose? Join us for the launch of Thrive: The Purpose of Schools in a Changing World.
There is no denying that education is in a moment of flux. With disrupted labour markets, entrenched inequality, and stalled social mobility, long-standing international assumptions about education’s purpose are under strain. Meanwhile, the climate crisis and the reckoning with colonialism are pressing for wholescale reform of what schools and universities prioritise. What movements or institutions are fit to lead this change? And what form should change take? There is a need for a new narrative of what education is for: can it be global?
These Political Briefings are designed to expose ministers, politicians, policy-makers, and opinion formers to departmental research findings to positively influence government and political priorities (with assistance from LSE's Public Affairs team).