Background: The use of randomised controlled trials (RCTs) in education has increased significantly over the last 15 years. However, their use has also been subject to sustained and rather trenchant criticism from significant sections of the education research community. Key criticisms have included the claims that: it is not possible to undertake RCTs in education; RCTs are blunt research designs that ignore context and experience; RCTs tend to generate simplistic universal laws of 'cause and effect'; and that they are inherently descriptive and contribute little to theory. Purpose: This article seeks to assess the above four criticisms of RCTs by considering the actual evidence in relation to the use of RCTs in education in practice. Design and methods: The article is based upon a systematic review that has sought to identify and describe all RCTs conducted in educational settings and including a focus on educational outcomes between 1980 and 2016. The search is limited to articles and reports published in English. Results: The systematic review found a total of 1017 unique RCTs that have been completed and reported between 1980 and 2016. Just over three quarters of these have been produced over the last 10 years, reflecting the significant increase in the use of RCTs in recent years. Overall, just over half of all RCTs identified were conducted in North America and a little under a third in Europe. The RCTs cover a wide range of educational settings and focus on an equally wide range of educational interventions and outcomes. The findings not only disprove the claim that it is not possible to do RCTs in education but also provide some supporting evidence to challenge the other three key criticisms outlined earlier. Conclusions: While providing evidence to counter the four criticisms outlined earlier, the article suggests that there remains significant progress to be made. The article concludes by outlining some key challenges for researchers undertaking RCTs in education.

There are some [immigrants] who are good, but then there are others. And now they have more rights than we do.-Marine Le Pen, Marseille rally 19 April 2017 In 2017, Marine Le Pen, the extreme right (ER) leader of the Front National (FN) was standing a chance of becoming France's next president. In recent years, the ER political ideology (also referred to as radical right and far right in the literature) has re-emerged in the political scene of Western Europe and raised serious concerns (Rydgren, 2007). For example, in the second round of French presidential election in 2002, the FN candidate has received 17.8% of the vote, while in 2017, this share increased to 33.9%. Despite a growing amount of research, a full understanding of why people would vote for the ER parties, especially if they may not normally support them, is lacking. The literature tends to focus on prejudice towards immigrants as the key variable predicting the ER vote, in other words, the argument is that those parties appeal others through their anti-immigration rhetoric with the focus on the immigrant threat (Cornelis & Van Hiel, 2015; Cutts, Ford & Goodwin, 2011; Green et al., 2016). Using a large representative sample, the current research adds to this literature and tests for the first time whether higher group relative deprivation (GRD), a perception that French people are worse off in comparison to immigrants, can predict the intention to vote for an ER candidate in France. Importantly, we argue that feelings of relative deprivation may sway voters towards an ER candidate even if voters may not usually vote for them or feel close to them. This may be critical in contexts whereby there are only two candidates to choose from, such as second rounds of presidential elections. Relative deprivation theory People do not make judgements of fairness in absolute terms in the social context but primarily by comparing how they are treated and what they are entitled to in comparison to other people or groups (Crosby, 1976). This principle has served as the basis for the development of relative deprivation theory, from early work on the American soldier (Stouffer et al., 1949) up to present-day research on prejudice, intergroup relations and political mobilisation (Mummendey et al., 1999; Osborne & Sibley, 2013; Pettigrew, 2016). Importantly, the principle of comparison can take place either at the interpersonal level or at the intergroup level (Runciman, 1966). Thus, individuals can experience individual relative deprivation

We examined the concepts and emotions people associate with their national flag, and how these associations are related to nationalism and patriotism across 11 countries. Factor analyses indicated that the structures of associations differed across countries in ways that reflect their idiosyncratic historical developments. Positive emotions and egalitarian concepts were associated with national flags across countries. However, notable differences between countries were found due to historical politics. In societies known for being peaceful and open-minded (e.g., Canada, Scotland), egalitarianism was separable from honor-related concepts and associated with the flag; in countries that were currently involved in struggles for independence (e.g., Scotland) and countries with an imperialist past (the United Kingdom), the flag was strongly associated with power-related concepts; in countries with a negative past (e.g., Germany), the primary association was sports; in countries with disruption due to separatist or extremist movements (e.g., Northern Ireland, Turkey), associations referring to aggression were not fully rejected; in collectivist societies (India, Singapore), obedience was linked to positive associations and strongly associated with the flag. In addition, the more strongly individuals endorsed nationalism and patriotism, the more they associated positive emotions and egalitarian concepts with their flag. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Acting prosocially towards others may sometimes involve tangible costs to self, which can be associated with lower motivation to help those who have been the victims of injustice. In contrast to previous work which suggests that empathy does not shape the perceptions of injustice, the present research proposes that while perceptions of fairness in the context of injustice are dynamic, they may well be shaped by empathy. Using a dictator-style paradigm, the present research explored the extent to which empathy is related to perceptions of injustice and in turn, compensating forms of inequality.A non-registered Study 1 (N = 466) found that higher empathy predisposition is related to perceiving more injustice in contexts of inequality. Preregistered Study 2 (N = 406) extended this finding by experimentally manipulating empathy, showing that emphasising with the victim of inequality is indirectly related to perceiving injustice. The hypothesised mechanism, empathy allowing identification and experiencing the feelings of anger associated with the injustice, is supported in Study 2. As such, perceptions of fairness are not static; empathy is argued to be an important mechanism in forming justice perceptions. Data and supplementary materials: [DOI: