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ERA is a digital repository of original research produced at The University of Edinburgh. The archive contains documents written by, or affiliated with, academic authors, or units, based at Edinburgh that have sufficient quality to be collected and preserved by the Library, but which are not controlled by commercial publishers. Holdings include full-text digital doctoral theses, masters dissertations, project reports, briefing papers and out-of-print materials.

Information on current research activity including staff, projects and publications is available via the Edinburgh Research Explorer.

Now showing 1 - 40 of 41

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“Is there another word for ‘water’?” Designing for student progression in academic literacies and epistemic agency
(The University of Edinburgh. College of Humamities and Social Sciences, 2026-05-04) Eerikäinen, Leila M.; Coyle, Do; Colucci-Gray, Laura
This longitudinal study conducted over one school year reports on a design-based research intervention which investigates conditions for fostering academic literacies in a small-group setting of English language learners aged 9-10. The aim is for the learners to achieve increased proficiency enabling them to fully participate in the mainstream class subjects. The study analyses issues of teaching practices in a middle school that support subject literacies development of students from diverse language backgrounds in the multilingual classroom. Drawing on language learning as subject literacies practices, knowledge building for deeper learning and transferable skills, this intervention enacted a set of DPs across four iterations fostering progression in students’ knowledge along the Everyday Language and Academic Language continuum. The design is informed by sociocultural theory and situative perspectives on meaning-making in the social context of the classroom. It draws on the knowledge construction metaphor of learning as joint collaboration for constructing shared, improvable objects, which are conceptualized not only as material artifacts but as the practices of epistemic work embedded in their construction. In a science topic, anchor texts and representation construction are used as entry points for discursive moves to discuss academic terms and diagrams for knowledge construction. There are three moves: meta-talk around repeated read-alouds of the anchor texts, focussing on academic word choices for concept-building; text editing through languaging to over-write academic terms; and epistemic work with representation construction or using appropriate disciplinary registers to re-write the anchor texts. A focus on reasoning practices enabled students to experience epistemic agency and authority, and progress from transcribing words and representations to reconstructing artifacts through edits. Such processes then led to constructing original artifacts where learners showed mastery in using academic literacies as sign forms and cultural tools. DPs with specific descriptors were developed, providing new design knowledge to support learning of academic literacies as appropriation of sign-making tools for epistemic work. The study therefore contributes new insights by articulating the underlying mechanisms for ELL progression and building a local theory of practice.
End of agency and the origin of morality
(The University of Edinburgh. College of Humanities and Social Science. School of Divinity, 2026-05-04) Piteo-Tarpy, Tyler; Chrisman, Matthew
This paper proposes a novel path towards a metaethical theory based on a substantive, universal, fundamental value. This proposal is developed out of critiques of Christine Korsgaard’s, Sharon Street’s, and Dale Dorsey’s constructivist theories, specifi cally the critiques of ‘empty formalism’ (applied to Kantian Constitutivism), ‘radical contingency’ (applied to Humean Constitutivism), and an amoralist or skeptical challenge (applied to Perfectionist Humean Constitutivism). These critiques will be shown to lead ultimately, from one theory to another, to the conclusion that everyone naturally holds, as their most fundamental value and thus goal, a shared vision of goodness. It is with reference to this goal that we judge actions as right and wrong, and thus this goal constitutes a moral system with both motivational and normative force. Some objections and implications will be considered at the end.
Children and Young People Bereaved by Parental Domestic Homicide – a focus on the United Kingdom and Ireland
(University of Edinburgh, 2026) Devaney, John
This brief report conveys key findings from the study “Children and young people bereaved by domestic homicide: Understanding home, relationships and identity”, with a focus on the United Kingdom and Ireland. It complements the report focusing on the findings from the Australian phase of the study. The report of the Australian phase of the study can be found at: https://doi.org/10.26188/24630690
Civic Network Research: A New Methodology for Conducting Ethical and Policy-relevant Peace and Conflict Research
(2026) Adikhari, Monalisa; Beaujouan-Marliere, Juline; Benson-Strohmayer, Matthew; Cooper, Luke; Darkovich, Andrii; Epple, Tim; Ghariba, Mazen; Gueudet, Sophie; Kaldor, Mary; Majid, Nisar; Myanmar Policy Institute; Theros, Marika; Turkmani, Reem; Weigand, Florian
This policy brief outlines the concept of ‘Civic Network Research’ as it has been developed by the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep) research programme. Civic Network Research is one of PeaceRep’s main methodological approaches next to its peace analytics and data-driven work. The brief is aimed at leadership of academic institutions and policymakers as well as funders of policy-relevant peace and conflict research.
Mapping Ukraine’s Democratic Space (2023 – 2026)
(PeaceRep: The Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform, 2026) Nesterenko, Roksolana; Darkovich, Andrii
Between 2023 and 2026, local democracy in Ukraine transitioned from mass emergency mobilisation to a state of institutional survival. This shift is marked by acute democratic fatigue and a critical personnel crisis as civic leaders mobilise into the Armed Forces. Activists now bear a dual burden of managing community recovery while struggling for their own economic survival, a dynamic that has narrowed the active civic core and made local resilience dangerously person-dependent rather than institutionalised.