Sue Goldrick

Developing equitable education systems

1. The challenge of equity in education 2. Using evidence to promote more equitable practice in schools 3. The development of an equity research network 4. Making schools more equitable 5. Making sense of the process 6. Assessing the impact 7. Drawing out the lessons 8. Rethinking the tasks

Making schools effective for all: Rethinking the task

Using evidence from a series of studies carried out over 20 years, this article explores ways of developing schools that are effective for all children and young people. The argument developed is intended to challenge those leading school improvement to return to their historical purpose, that of ensuring a sound education for every child. The authors argue that in order to achieve this it is necessary to complement within-school developments with efforts that link schools with one another and with their wider communities. This means that school improvement processes have to be nested within locally led efforts to make school systems more equitable and to link the work of schools with area strategies for tackling wider inequities and, ultimately, with national policies aimed at creating a fairer society. This article considers the implications of this analysis for the work of senior staff at all levels of the education system.

Learning from differences: a strategy for teacher development in respect to student diversity

Drawing on evidence gathered as a result of collaborative action research carried out in 8 secondary schools in 3 European countries, this paper proposes an innovative strategy for helping teachers respond positively to learner diversity. The strategy merges the idea of lesson study with an emphasis on listening to the views of students. The research suggests that it is this latter emphasis that makes the difference as far as responding to learner diversity is concerned. It is this that brings a critical edge to the process that has the potential to challenge teachers to go beyond the sharing of existing practices in order to invent new possibilities for engaging students in their lessons. The paper also considers some of the difficulties involved in using this strategy.

Using Collaborative Inquiry to Foster Equity within School Systems: Opportunities and Barriers.

Drawing on experiences in England over many years, this paper explores the authors’ efforts to use collaborative inquiry in order to foster greater equity within schools. All of this is set within national policy contexts that emphasise increased school autonomy, competition, and accountability as central improvement strategies. It is argued that whilst such contexts create worrying challenges in relation to equity, they also open up new opportunities for moving forward. The paper concludes that national policies have to foster greater flexibility at the local level, so that practitioners have the space to analyse their particular circumstances and determine priorities accordingly.

Making Sure that Every Child Matters: Enhancing Equity within Education Systems

Developing more equitable education systems, in which the link between disadvantage, education and life chances can be effectively challenged, is central to establishing a more just society. This presents policymakers, educators and researchers with a moral imperative to act to move education systems in more equitable directions. However, there has been relatively little explicit discussion about what a more equitable education system would actually look like, nor of how the values of equity can be made integral to research, policy, and practice, and used to drive reform.

Practice and performance: changing perspectives of teachers through collaborative enquiry

Abstract Background This paper considers the role of collaborative enquiry as a means of developing equity in education. The context was a collaborative project in which a university was supporting local schools in carrying out enquiry into their practice, with the purpose of moving the practice towards greater equity. Purpose The research question addressed is as follows: What characterises and explains teachers’ different and changing perspectives in a process of enquiry directed towards more equitable schooling? Sample Participants were teachers involved in a systematic process of collaborative action research in the north-west of England. Design and methods During an 11-month period, spanning a school year, the authors engaged with teachers, supporting enquiry processes. Teachers’ perspectives were explored as they participated in this enquiry network. The study design was ethnographic, with tools introduced to generate systematic data within the process. In particular, five months into the process, 16 of the teachers were invited to participate in an activity based on Q-sort methodology. They were asked to rank, and comment on, statements which described how they might be thinking about, and responding to, the enquiry process. Results Analysis of the ways that teachers sorted the cards led to identification of four groups of participants: (1) those focused on practice, (2) research, (3) collaboration and (4) those feeling themselves to be outsiders to the process. As the two dominant perspectives were ‘practice’ and ‘research’ (groups 1 and 2), two contrasting case studies were then developed in order to explore the perspectives in more detail. While the initial questions generated by the participants arose out of their existing development plans, and both aimed to contribute to equity in the school, analysis showed that the processes in the two schools differed and suggested that teachers’ experience of enquiry in the two case studies was also different, both in terms of the ways they were empowered to consider their own work critically, and the contexts in which they worked. Conclusions Enquiry can work as a tool, offering teachers a way of tackling a problem. But, in addition, enquiry can change the way teachers see themselves, overall leading to a deepening of teacher professional identity.