Data themes: Education

Resources for researching education may include data from subscription databases, publicly available data portals or archived academic projects. Some suggestions are:

Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts
This database is an indexing and abstracting tool covering education alongside health, social services, economics and politics. It abstracts and indexes over 500 journals, from more than 16 countries and is updated monthly.

Bristol Document Summary Service 
The Document Summary Service, founded in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Bristol, provides a web-based educational digest selected by experts. It covers a wide range of issues, pertinent to both whole school and curricular issues at all phases of education.

The resource comprises a monthly set of summaries of key research, policy and influential developments in the world of education. It includes publications from: DfE, Ofsted, Ofqual, UCAS, NfER and more.

An online archive facility that enables subscribers to quickly search all historical summaries by theme or keyword.

Access: extra username/password required for this resource. Check WebLearn for details.

1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70)  
Originally known as the Child Health and Education Study (CHES), a longitudinal survey collecting data about the births and families of approximately eleven thousand babies born in the United Kingdom in one particular week in 1970.

Child Care & Early Education Research Connections
Offers both research data suitable for further analysis and statistical results generated from public sources. "Research data" refers to the coded responses from each respondent, documentation that provides the original questions asked, and discussions of complex statistical methods. In order to make use of this data, you will need statistical software and a good understanding of statistical methodology.

Commonwealth iLibrary
Comprises the Commonwealth Secretariat’s publications and covers education among other topics. Titles are organised by series, year and alphabetically, and search and discovery of complete publications or their components, articles and chapters, can be retrieved.

Department for Education Statistics
Official statistics on education and children.

Digital Education Resource Archive (DERA)
The IOE UK Digital Education Repository Archive (DERA) is a digital archive of documents published electronically by government and other relevant bodies in the areas of education, training, children and families. The repository includes documents published electronically by the UK Government, UK Parliament (including devolved Assemblies), government departments, semi-official organisations (quangos) and think tanks in the areas of education, training, children and families, such as annual reports, consultation documents, guidance, research reports, speeches and statistics.

Education Collection
ProQuest collection comprising two databases: Education Database and ERIC.

Educational Resources Information Center (ERIC)
A database that provides access to statistics, data, proceedings and other resources on education ranging from pre-school years to the adult level. This is mainly drawn from Resources in Education (RIE) and Current Index to Journals in Education (CIJE). The database is updated monthly.

Higher Education Statistics Agency
Data collected annually from UK universities, higher education colleges and other differently funded providers of higher education.

Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)
A major archive of social science research data that holds information predominately relating to the United States - it also includes some additional collections. Data is available on a range of topics including education both within and outside the Unites States of America.

Longitudinal Study of Young People in England  
The LSYPE is one of the main information sources for the formation and appraisal of policies relating to young people.

MOST: Management of Social Trasformations Programme
A research programme, designed by UNESCO, to promote international comparative social science research.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) for England and Wales: Education and childcare
Official webpage of the UK government for census and other government surveys on the topics of Early years childcare, school and college education, and higher education and adult learning, including qualifications, personnel, and safety and well-being.
Earlier releases are moved to the National Archives website, however, all historical data is still on the ONS website.

Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data  
A major source for global monthly, quarterly and annual data and statistics on international development and trade. Issues to do with education are included such as attainment, youth inactivity and educational resources. Most of these surveys are made available through the UK Data Service but further analysis and commentary is provided by the OECD iLibrary with direct links to an education database, data from the teaching and learning international survey (TALIS) and the programme for international student assessment (PISA).

Registered Teachers in England  
A data collection that comprises anonymised details from the General Teaching Council for England (GTCE) Register of Teachers.

Research Connections
A searchable collection of more than 15,000 resources and datasets related to child care and early education within the United States. Highlighted topics include attendance rates and child outcomes, child care decision making and parent engagement.

UNESCO Institute for Statistics
Data for the sustainable development goals

UIS.Stat
A browser for viewing and downloading the most popular UIS data and indicators in tables. Data are organized in a tree view by topic and presented using a simple three-dimensional format (indicator, country or region, year). Users can build their own customized tables and export data in Excel format.

World Bank Education Statistics (EdStats)  
A comprehensive data and analysis source for key topics in education such as access, completion, learning, expenditures, policy, and equity. Data sources include administrative country data from UIS; international learning assessments (PISA, TIMSS, PIRLS, PIAAC, and EGRA) and three regional learning assessments (SACMEQ, PASEC, LLECE); World Bank databases, household surveys such as LSMS, DHS, MICS surveys. It includes World Bank Education Projects Database classified by activities, components, and sub-sectors of all World Bank Education Projects since 1998. It also includes detailed expenditure data extracted from World Bank public expenditure review documents however this data is not included in the EdStats Query because it is not internationally comparable.

World Education Reform Database (WERD)
The World Education Reform Database (WERD) includes 10,955 reforms from 189 countries and territories, and more than 86 percent of the reforms are from years ranging from 1970 to 2020. Reforms are drawn from reports to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), World Bank, and UNESCO, as well as publications produced by country experts. The data are available at the reform level and include the year and country of each reform, as well as a title and brief description. Hosted by Stanford’s Graduate School of Education.

World Inequality Database on Education (WIDE)
Highlights the powerful influence of circumstances, such as wealth, gender, ethnicity and location, over which people have little control but which play an important role in shaping their opportunities for education and life. It draws attention to unacceptable levels of education inequality across countries and between groups within countries, with the aim of helping to inform policy design and public debate.

You can find further resources on this theme by using on Databases A-Z or SOLO and subject guides.

Recommendations for additions to these lists are always welcome. Please email the Bodleian Data Librarian with suggestions.