1st Edition
Equity and Excellence in Education Towards Maximal Learning Opportunities for All Students
Throughout the world, equity and excellence in education is a major issue of concern. International comparative studies such as those carried out by OECD (PISA) have launched a worldwide debate on the effectiveness of educational systems (macro level), schools (meso level) and teachers (micro level) in terms of enhancing equity and excellence. Inspired by the OECD research and spurred by national policy-making, quantitative and qualitative research studies have recently been conducted in different parts of the globe aiming to provide deeper insight into the crucial variables that have an impact on equity, excellence or both. Among the variables that have been identified as crucial in this respect are the pupils' gender and their socio-economic and linguistic background, teachers' expectations, cognitions and pedagogical approach in the classroom, parental support, financial aspects, educational policies (e.g. priority policies, multilingual policies, early start policies), and variables related to the structure of the educational structure and system (e.g. compulsory school age, comprehensive systems, support structures, system variables enhancing spread of learners). This volume aims to compile a rich collection of research-based contributions, providing a state-of-the-art resource on what we know about this topic today.
1. Promoting Equity and Excellence in Education: An Overview Piet Van Avermaet, Mieke Van Houtte and Kris Van den Branden 2. Measuring Excellence and Equity in Education: Conceptual and Methodological Issues Marie Duru-Bellat and Alain Mingat 3. School Competition, Institutional Differentiation, and the Quality and Equity of Education Systems: Evidence from PISA 2006 Karin Zimmer, Miyako Ikeda and Elke Lüdemann 4. So Where’s the Teacher in School Effects Research? The Impact of Teachers’ Beliefs, Culture and Behaviour on Equity and Excellence in Education Mieke Van Houtte 5. A Feminist Analysis of Gender and Educational Achievement Becky Francis and Christine Skelton 6. Teachers’ Adaptations to Ethnic Minority Students in Belgium and England Peter Stevens 7. Early Childhood Education and Care: Equity and Excellence in the Foundational Stage Michel Vandenbroeck 8. Bilingualism for Equity and Excellence in Minority Education: The United States Ofelia García and JoAnne Kleifgen 9. Finnish Basic Education: When Equity and Excellence Meet Pirjo Linnakylä, Jouni Välijärvi and Inga Arffman 10. Literacy for All Koen Jaspaert and Kris Van den Branden 11. Caring Mothers and Teachers, Not Acting White, and Religiosity: What Are the Success Factors of High Achieving DiaspoRicans and Moroccan Students in Belgium? René Antrop-González, William Vélez, Tomás Garrett and Dana Baldwin 12. Full Service and Extended Schools: The Path to Equity? Alan Dyson
Biography
Kris Van den Branden is a Professor of Linguistics at the Faculty of Arts of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.
Piet Van Avermaet is the director of the Centre for Diversity and Learning at the University of Ghent, Belgium.
Mieke Van Houtte is lecturer in the Department of Sociology of Ghent University.
