Governments, local authorities, school leaders, and teachers all over
the world want to improve the educational attainment and participation
of all students, and to minimise any systematic differences in outcomes
for social and economic groups. A particular concern is for those
students from backgrounds that may objectively disadvantage them at
school and beyond. However, considerable effort and money is currently
being wasted on policies, practices and interventions that have very
little hope of success, and that may indeed endanger the progress that
is being made otherwise. The poor quality of much education research
evidence, coupled with an unwillingness among users of evidence to
discriminate appropriately between what we know and do not know, means
that opportunities are being missed. At a time of reduced public
spending it is important that proposed interventions are both effective
and efficient.
Overcoming Disadvantage in Education is unique in the way that it:
-
- Shows where the solutions to underachievement and poverty lie
- combines primary(new), secondary (official) and published (review)
evidence
- distinguishes between those possible causes of underachievement that
are largely fixed for individuals, and those that are modifiable.
There are evidence-informed ways forward in handling under-achievement
and increasing social justice in education. This book shows which the
more likely approaches are, and where further work could yield further
benefits.
This book will be a key text for students, developing academic
researchers and supervisors in the social sciences, and for those
research users charged with improving educational outcomes.
