e-Pedagogium 2015, 15(2):51-61 | DOI: 10.5507/epd.2015.016

21st Century skills: a perspective from England

Jon White
Jon White, College of Education, The University of Derby, Kedleston Road, Derby, DE22 1GB, United Kingdom, E-mail: J.White1@derby.ac.uk

A review of the system of education in England is provided. A review of literature of 21st century skills and what their place might be in a curriculum is presented. There is discussion of how 21st century skills are developed in early years, primary and secondary stages. Post-16 and higher education provision are critically explored, with the findings of an institutional research project applied to the existing literature.
The conclusion proposes that the pedagogical pressures of performativity make it challenging to introduce 21st century skills to the primary and secondary phases of education, largely due to the issues of how to assess the development of these skills. Nevertheless, there is a clear imperative to support teachers in both the development and assessment of these skills across the full age range.

Keywords: performativity, collaboration, assessment, ATC21S, JISC

Published: April 1, 2015  Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago Chicago Notes IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
White, J. (2015). 21st Century skills: a perspective from England. e-Pedagogium, 15(2), 51-61. doi: 10.5507/epd.2015.016
Share...
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills (2013). ATC21S, http://www.atc21s.org/ Accessed 01 July 2015.
    2. Baumfield, V., & Oberski, I. (1998). What do teachers think about teaching skills? Quality Assurance in Education, 6 (1), 44-51. Go to original source...
    3. Bernstein, B. (1970). Education cannot compensate for society. New Society. 20th February 1970.
    4. Binkley M., Erstad, O., Hermna, J., Raisen, S., Ripley, M., Miller-Ricci, M., & Rumble, M. (2012) Defining Twenty-First Century Skills. In Griffin, P., Care, E., & McGaw, B. Assessment and Teaching of 21st Century Skills. Dordrecht: Springer. Go to original source...
    5. Black, B. (2010). "It's not like teaching other subjects" - the challenges of introducing Critical Thinking AS level in England. Research Matters: A Cambridge Assessment Publication, 10, 2-8.
    6. Chevalier, A. (2011). Subject choices and earnings of UK graduates. Economics of Education Review, 30 (6) 1187-1201. Go to original source...
    7. Department for Business, Industry and Science (2015). On target for a higher skilled workforce HMSO. Published on-line: 25 June 2015
    8. Digital Derby, (2015). An evaluation of digital technology usage by students and staff at the University of Derby. UoD. https://digitalderby.wp.derby.ac.uk Accessed 04 April 2015.
    9. EYFS, (2014). Early Years Foundation Stage framework. Department for Education, HMSO http://www.gov.uk Accessed March 2015.
    10. Gardner, J. (Ed.) (2006). Assessment and Learning. London: Sage.
    11. Haensley, P., Lupkowski, A. & Ellind, E. (1985). The Role of Extracurricular Activities in Education. The High School Journal, 69 (2) 110-119.
    12. James, I. (2011). Opening Minds. Research paper presented at "What kind of education enables us to cope with an interconnected world?" A Cambridge Assessment conference, (March, 2011) London.
    13. Jenkins, H. (2006). Convergence Culture: where old and new media collide. New York: NY University Press.
    14. JISC. (2010). Welcome to the design studio. http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com Accessed 4 May 2015.
    15. Mercer, N. & Littleton, K. (2007). Dialogue and the development of children's thinking. London: Routledge. Go to original source...
    16. OCR. (2013). Website for A level Critical Thinking. http://www.ocr.org.uk/Accessed 05 Feb 2015.
    17. Penney, D. and Harris, J. (1997). Extracurricular Physical Education: More of the Same for the More Able? Sport, Education and Society, 2 (1) 41-54. Go to original source...
    18. Schleicher, A. (2010). The case for 21st century learning. http://www.oecd.org. Accessed 05 April 2015.
    19. Sternberg, R. (1987). Teaching critical thinking: eight ways to fail before you begin Phi Delta Kappa, 68, 246-249.
    20. 21st Century Science (2011). Website http://www.21stcenturyscience.org/Accessed 20 April 2015.

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), which permits non-comercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content