Responding to the challenge of equity within education systems

Abstract

Children enter schools from different backgrounds, have different experiences of education, and leave with very different results. In many countries, the poorest children tend to lose out most starkly, achieve the worst results and attend the lowest performing schools (Giroux & Schmidt, 2004; OECD, 2010; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2009). A fundamental challenge for policy makers and practitioners, therefore, is to find ways of breaking the links between disadvantage, educational failure and restricted life chances. In this paper, I describe and analyse the experience of a three-year project in England that sets out to address this equity agenda. This leads me to draw out lessons that may be relevant to those in other contexts who are focused on this challenging issue.

Keywords

• inclusión
• equidad
• sistemas educativos