Quality and Equity in Education

Revisiting Theory and Research on Educational Effectiveness and Improvement

Leonidas Kyriakides, Bert P.M. Creemers, Anastasia Panayiotou, Evi Charalambous

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781351401173
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Quality and Equity in Education draws attention to the importance of developing and testing theories of educational effectiveness and using these theories for improvement purposes. It makes a major contribution to knowledge and theory building in research on promoting quality and equity in education.

The book presents an improved version of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness based on the empirical data emerged from studies testing its validity, claiming that the proposed theory can be used for establishing links between educational effectiveness research and school improvement. Towards that end, the book presents the Dynamic Approach to teacher and school improvement, demonstrating its impact on quality and equity in education. The book not only proposes an agenda for further research on developing and testing the dynamic theory of educational effectiveness but also refers to research methods that can be used to test the assumptions of this theory and search for relevant cause and effect relations. The agenda also refers to the need of identifying the conditions under which the dynamic approach to teacher and school improvement can have an effect on student learning outcomes.

This book will be of great interest for academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in education research and the area of quality and equity in education. It will also be of interest to policymakers, school advisors and other stakeholders in education.

1
Quality and equity in education

Aims and outline of Chapter 1

The principal objective of this book is to make a major contribution to knowledge and theory-building in research on the promotion of quality and equity in education. The book draws attention to the importance not only of developing and testing theories of educational effectiveness, but also of using these theories for improvement purposes. For this reason, in the first part of this book, we refer to recent theoretical developments in the field of educational effectiveness and argue for the importance of taking into consideration the dynamic nature of education. The assumptions and main elements of the dynamic model of educational effectiveness are presented. In the last chapter of the second part page, we refer to the empirical support that this model has received and present the results of a review of recent effectiveness studies, which help us identify ways to improve this model further. In the second part of the book, we discuss the extent to which links between Educational Effectiveness Research (EER) and research on school improvement can be established. Thus, the rationale and the main features of the Dynamic Approach (DA) to teacher and school improvement are presented. We then refer to studies testing the impact of the DA on the promotion of quality and equity. In the last chapter of this part, we also present the main results from a synthesis of improvement studies, which reveal the importance of identifying the conditions under which the DA can be used for improvement purposes. In the last part of the book, we propose a broadening of the agenda of research on educational effectiveness and improvement and claim that research on developing and testing theories of educational effectiveness can contribute significantly to establishing an effective approach to school improvement that can have a major impact on promoting quality and equity in education. Specifically, an improved version of the dynamic model is proposed, taking into consideration the results of studies testing the validity of the model as well as the results of a relevant synthesis of effectiveness studies conducted during the fourth phase of EER. In the last part, we also propose ways to elaborate further this DA to teacher and school improvement by considering the results of a relevant synthesis of recent teacher and school improvement studies conducted during the last 12 years (i.e., 2005–2017). Implications for research, policy and practice are finally drawn in the last chapter of the book. In this way, we reveal the importance of merging the field of educational effectiveness with the fields of teacher and school improvement. We initially present a review of theories and studies of effectiveness and improvement in two different parts of the book, but readers will see how research on effectiveness (presented in Part 1) is used to build a specific approach to improvement (presented in Part 2). In the last part, readers will also learn how research on improvement can help develop further the theoretical framework of EER and therefore that treating the fields of effectiveness and improvement separately is not productive. In the last part, we therefore argue that the ultimate aim of researchers in the field of effectiveness and improvement should be the promotion of quality and equity in education, and this can be achieved not only by developing further the theoretical framework of educational effectiveness, but also by using research findings to establish an evidence-based and theory-driven approach to teacher and school improvement.

In this introductory chapter, we discuss the importance of promoting both quality and equity in education for the benefit of individual students and the society. We point out that there are different views on what is socially just and how equity in education can be measured. We then claim that these views of equity can be divided into two broad categories: a meritocratic and an egalitarian view. Thus, in this chapter, the main arguments/assumptions of each of these two views are presented. In the third part of the chapter, we discuss the relationships between quality and equity in education and show that a number of researchers in the fields of psychology, sociology and economics of education have treated quality and equity as being in competition with each other and have supported different approaches to how to deal with the ‘cost’ of promoting the one rather than the other. This debate has arisen because the two dimensions of effectiveness (quality and equity) have never been explicitly defined, and consequently there is not enough research that has investigated the relationship between the two dimensions of effectiveness in classrooms, schools and educational systems; the result is a lack of evidence. Thus, we provide clear definitions of the concepts of quality and equity in relation to what schools can do to promote these two dimensions of effectiveness. We also argue for the importance of investigating the relationships between quality and equity and compare the effectiveness status of teachers, schools and educational systems in relation to these two dimensions. In the last section of this chapter, we argue for the importance not only of developing theories that can explain variation in educational effectiveness in terms of quality and/or equity, but also of using theories for improvement purposes. In this respect, we refer to the findings of research on differential educational effectiveness, which reveal that teachers and schools can achieve both quality and equity. Finally, the aims of the book and its structure are outlined.

Promoting quality and equity: the main purpose of education

Education is a powerful tool for improving all aspects of a person’s life and a factor in the reduction of poverty (Kyriakides, Creemers, & Charalambous, 2018). School failure can have a negative long-lasting impact on a child’s life, since leaving school without enough qualifications may result in finding a low-income job and having a poorer lifestyle, which may not allow equal participation in the civic and social aspects of modern society in comparison with children attending education for a longer period of time (Micklewright & Schnepf, 2007). Based on data from the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), it is estimated that if all 15-year-olds in the area of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) attained at least level 2 in the PISA mathematics assessment, they would contribute over USD 200 trillion in terms of additional economic output over the course of their working lives (OECD, 2010a). Thus, educational failure results in high costs for society since uneducated people cannot be actively involved in civic and political affairs and are more prone to crime, other illegal activities (OECD, 2010b; OECD, 2013; Torney-Purta, Lehmann, Oswald, & Schulz, 2001), and unhealthy habits, as they may face both economic and social problems (Cunha & Heckman, 2009; Heckman, 2008; Psacharopoulos, 2007). However, children are not all equal when it comes to educational failure. Evidence shows that children coming from socially disadvantaged homes are more likely to have worse school results and to drop out of school more frequently than are children coming from better-off families. For example, international evaluation studies like PISA have revealed that in Europe approximately 20 per cent of students are not equipped with basic skills in mathematics and that a 15-year-old student from a relatively disadvantaged home is 2.37 times more likely to be a poor performer (obtaining a score below level 2 that measures basic skills in mathematics) than is a student from an affluent family (see OECD, 2012). Meta-analyses have also revealed that the socioeconomic status (SES) of students has an impact on student achievement (Sirin, 2005; White, 1982). Therefore, socioeconomic inequalities in education are an important issue for both researchers and policy-makers, and all agree that in a democratic society socioeconomic inequalities in educational outcomes should be minimal (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2018; Marks, Cresswell, & Ainley, 2006). Consequently, one of the major objectives of the education systems around the world is to understand which are the schooling processes that provide opportunities for all learners to succeed in school (Frempong, Reddy, & Kanjee, 2011) and thereby promote both quality and equity in education (Kyriakides & Creemers, 2011). To achieve this objective, not only should schools within these systems help students achieve learning outcomes, but they also need to function in such a way that students’ success in learning is not determined by the characteristics of their background.

At this point, it should be acknowledged that there are different visions of how equity in education can be defined (Atkinson, 2015; Paquette, 1998), which can generally be divided into two broad categories: a) a meritocratic view and b) an egalitarian view. The meritocratic view is based on the assumption that ‘status’ in society should be the reflection of one’s own ‘merits’, ‘talents’ and ‘effort’ (Gulson & Webb, 2012; McCoy & Major, 2007). According to this view, differences in student learning outcomes may be attributed to differences between students in terms of their cognitive abilities, talents and amount of work dedicated to schooling (i.e., the effort they put in, in order to succeed). However, EER reveals that student learning outcomes are associated with various student factors, including background factors, such as SES, gender and ethnicity, which are given characteristics and which students are not in a position to change easily in order to achieve better learning outcomes. In the first part of this book, we explicitly refer to the main findings of EER and present theoretical models of EER that take into account the impact of student factors (see Chapters 2 and 3). This implies that even if students are provided with the same learning opportunities, variation in student learning achievement gains can be detected, and this variation can partly be explained by student background factors beyond their cognitive abilities and the effort that they put in to achieve these outcomes (Kyriakides & Luyten, 2009; Lim, 2013).

In this book, we argue that even if students are given the same opportunities within the school, not all students will manage to develop their talents since different hidden mechanisms in society, as well as differences in their home learning environment, will also affect their progress (see also Sammons, Toth, & Sylva, 2018). Based on the work of these critics and research findings, the egalitarian vision has evolved to become the mainstream view of equity, which implies that the main responsibility for achieving equity should be that of society (Van Damme & Bellens, 2017). In the case of education, national/state agencies and schools are expected to provide further support for those disadvantaged groups of students (based on their background characteristics, such as SES, gender and ethnicity) in order to ensure that differences in learning outcomes are substantially reduced (Kelly & Downey, 2010; OECD, 2012). This implies that positive discrimination of different groups is not only legitimated in order to obtain equity in education, but also seen as a characteristic of effective education (Kyriakides, Creemers, & Charalambous, 2018).

In this chapter, we therefore claim the importance of using two dimensions in measuring educational effectiveness. Specifically, we argue that effective educational systems, schools and teachers are not only those that contribute to the promotion of learning outcomes for all (quality), but also those that manage to reduce differences in student learning outcomes between groups of students with different background characteristics (equity). At the same time, it is acknowledged that differences in learning outcomes between different groups of students cannot be completely eliminated since these gaps can be attributed to other hidden mechanisms in society over which schools may have no control. In this way, we follow the same approach to measuring equity as we do to measuring quality, whereby we expect to see progress on the part of all students but do not anticipate that all of them will achieve the ‘same maximum’ results.

Measuring quality and equity at classroom/school/system level: the two dimensions of educational effectiveness

Work on equal educational opportunities conducted 50 years ago by Coleman and his colleagues (Coleman et al., 1966) and Jencks and his colleagues (Jencks et al., 1972) argued that student achievement can be predicted mainly on the basics of the background characteristics of students and especially their SES and their intelligence. These studies claimed that after controlling for student background factors, not much variation in student achievement remains to be explained by the influence of teachers and schools. These findings resulted in a pessimistic view of the contribution that teachers and schools can make in promoting student learning outcomes. In this context, two studies conducted independently in the USA (Brookover, Beady, Flood, Schweitzer, & Wisenbaker, 1979) and the UK (Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore, Ouston, & Smith, 1979) were concerned with examining evidence demonstrating the impact that teachers and schools can have on promoting student learning outcomes. As a consequence, early school effectiveness research and school improvement projects were underpinned, to a greater or lesser extent, by the idea of creating effective schools for the urban poor (Edmonds, 1979). In the 1980s, there was quite a lot of criticism levelled against this kind of school improvement and research because of its conspicuous sampling biases (Firestone & Herriott, 1982; Purkey & Smith, 1983; Ralph & Fennessey, 1983; Rowan, Bossart, & Dwyer, 1983). As a result, during the last four decades, various large-scale effectiveness studies have been conducted in several countries demonstrating the impact that teachers and schools can have in promoting student learning outcomes. Moreover, accountability systems have been developed in several countries, which treat the progress made by students as the main criterion for evaluating teachers and schools (Ray, 2006; Sanders & Horn, 1994). Furthermore, the great majority of effectiveness studies conducted in various countries have revealed that, after controlling for student background factors, a lot of variation at the school level remains (Chapman, Muijs, Reynolds, Sammons, & Teddlie, 2016; Townsend, 2007), and the variation that is left unexplained is treated as an indicator of the school effect on student learning outcomes (Goldstein, 2003; Thomas, Peng, & Gray, 2007). As a consequence, there is nowadays substantial agreement as to appropriate methods of estimating school differences or effects and the kinds of data required for valid comparisons to be made in relation to the promotion of quality (Creemers, Kyriakides, & Sammons, 2010; Dumay, Coe, & Anumendem, 2014; Goldstein, 1997).

With regard to the impact of teachers and schools on equity, some effectiveness studies have revealed that teachers and schools matter most for under-privileged and/or initially low-achieving students (Scheerens & Bosker, 1997). This implies that schools which are effective in terms of the quality dimension may also be effective in reducing the learning differences between students coming from different socioeconomic backgrounds. However, almost all effectiveness studies measure school effectiveness in relation to the quality dimension (Sammons, 2010), and therefore a methodology to measure the impact of schools in promoting equity has not yet been clearly developed (Kelly, 2012; Nachbauer & Kyriakides, 2020). Nevertheless, during the last decade an emphasis on investigating equity has gradually developed. Kyriakides and his colleagues (Kyriakides, Creemers, & Charalambous, 2018) refer to the importance of establishing a clear methodology for measuring equity and propose a specific approach that can be used for investigating the relations between the two dimensions of effectiveness: quality and equity. More specifically, equity is seen as being related to fairness, which implies that personal or socioeconomic characteristics, such as gender, ethnic origin or family background, should not be obstacles to success in education. This approach seems to be in line with the indicator for measuring equity at the country level proposed by the OECD, which is concerned with the impact that SES has on student achievement. It is argued that equitable educational systems are those in which SES has a relatively small effect on student learning outcomes. One could therefore evaluate teachers, schools and systems (as well as interventions) by investigating the extent to which the effect of SES on achievement has been ‘reduced’ during a school year. This implies that effective teachers and schools should not only be able to promote student learning outcomes, but also to contribute to the ‘reduction’ of the effect on student achievement of student background factors, which are given characteristics and which students are not usually able to change (e.g., SES, gender, ethnicity). It is also important to note here that a multidimensional approach to measuring equity can also be promoted since some schools and/or teachers may be found to be effective in terms of equity when a specific background factor is examined (e.g., SES) but not when another such factor is taken into account (e.g., gender). This assumption has received some empirical support through the analysis of data that have emerged from national and international studies (see Kyriakides, Creemers, & Charalambous, 2019).

In this chapter, it is also acknowledged that equity in education could be examined in two ways that are closely linked and might help us analyse the implications of school failure for teachers/schools/systems: equity as fairness and equity as inclusion. Specifically, school failure can be seen to be twofold in nature. On the one hand, it could be viewed as the failure of an educational system which is unable to provide an education of quality for all. In this case, overcoming school failure implies ensuring inclusion by providing a basic minimum standard of education for each and every student. Secondly, school failure can be attributed to the fairness perspective, which is based on the fact that factors beyond those that students can control are associated with student learning outcomes. Fairness implies ensuring that personal and social circumstances should not be an obstacle to educational success, and inclusion implies ensuring a minimum standard of education for all (Field, Kuczera, & Pont, 2007). In this book, we focus on equity as fairness, which may be used to evaluate the impact that teachers and schools can have in promoting equity in education.

Consequently, the equity dimension of effectiveness in education demands that students’ expected learning outcomes should depend only on their own efforts and...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Preface
• 1 Quality and equity in education
• Part 1 Developing and testing educational effectiveness theories
• Part 2 Approaches to school improvement and their impact on quality and equity in education
• Part 3 Educational effectiveness and improvement: broadening the agenda
• References
• Index