Equality and Difference in Education. Theoretical and Practical Issues in Equity Education – A Polish Example

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the contemporary understanding of equality and differences in education and to present key theoretical and practical issues affecting equity education in Poland based on a selection of studies by various authors. Each equity education project must face the dialectics of equality and difference in education. In a longer historical perspective, the evolution of the modernist concept of equality in education is clearly seen. The essence of this evolution was the changing perception of difference: from understanding equality as sameness and emphasis on standardized educational practices (comprehensive school) (although subject to the national idea – Gellner – and to hidden gender, class, race, ethnic divisions), through segregation and selection on the grounds of various distinctions of difference, over to the contemporary understanding of equality as acceptance of differences and striving for an equilibrium between sensitivity to differences and equal treatment of everyone irrespectively of those differences. This third understanding of the dialectics of equality and difference creates the basis for equity education, which the author considers to be one of the means of social inclusion. Three key obstacles to effective implementation of this idea need to be highlighted. Firstly, it is the field of education (Bourdieu) and its specific nature. The need to transform people in line with preset goals, testing and the hierarchical structure of the very process of education is rather difficult to align with the stated understanding of equality. Another serious problem is the neoliberal market logic which deepens class divisions within the very structure of the educational system (i.e. the division into private and public schools) and creates internal differences among public schools (“better” and “worse” schools), thus imposing rivalry and extreme individualization (or indeed a cultural capital contest) on all participants of the field of education in their pursuance of their goals. The third problem involves the non-alignment of the content of curriculum and textbooks with the assumptions of the equity discourse. This problem will be illustrated with an example from Poland with references to this and other authors’ research into textbook content.

Keywords

• equality
• difference
• equity education