Shrinking the Educational Inequity Gap
Cooperation of Educators and Communities Required to Effect Change
Oct 29, 2009
In “Poverty and Education: Towards Effective Action, A Review of the Literature Educators” Joseph J. Flessa says that educators are moving beyond the question of whether “students from poor families systematically rank lower than their wealthier peers on all traditional measures of school success” to “how large those differences are, what influences best explain the gap between poor students and other students, and what reforms do the most to shrink that gap.”
Inter-relationship Between Macro and Micro Causes of Poverty
Flessa’s review acknowledges the inter-relatedness of the macro and micro causes of poverty and suggests that school success is “determined in large part by preconditions over which schools have no control, like family SES” however, steps can be taken to minimize the gap as some schools have demonstrated “through a combination of curricular and human resource investments.”
Debunking School Responsibility Myths
Since what happens in the home, community and at school widens or closes the gap, the myths that “schools can do nothing” or “schools can do everything,” are debunked. Flessa demonstrates that working to create the conditions that support greater educational opportunities for children affected by poverty will take the efforts of teachers and school administrators as well as policymakers who, with the help of families and communities, share the responsibility.
Policy Makers’ Expectations Burden the Poor
Policies relating to schools and the families they serve are often rooted in middle class expectations that devalue working class parents and burden them with unrealistic expectations. Outside the school and within-school remedies are best developed by policy makers who acknowledge schools and their environments as intertwined. In addition, policies must reduce classism and address inequity in schooling.
Effectiveness of Different Interventions
In “A Typology of Actions to Tackle Social Inequalities in Health,” Margaret Whitehead discusses interventions in socially inequitable issues that affect health. She aims to help broaden understanding into a range of different interventions and their potential effectiveness to avoid the tendency of focusing on one type while neglecting others.
Writing from a UK perspective, a country that is one of the leading Organisations for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries in child (family) poverty, she organizes her paper around four categories of intervention: strengthening individuals, strengthening communities, improving living and working conditions, and promoting healthy macro-policies.
Deficit Framework Detrimental
In considering the interventions aimed at strengthening individuals in disadvantaged circumstances, Whitehead acknowledges “a move away from deficit models, towards recognition of the assets and capabilities that individuals with adversity posses.” Initiatives must shift away from seeing the disadvantaged as only having personal deficits, “either in knowledge, beliefs, self-esteem, practical competence in life skills or powerlessness” towards a “recognition of the assets and capabilities that individuals with adversity possess.” She cites resilience as a surplus that must not be overlooked.
Flessa states that changing from deficit to surplus models also applies in strengthening community interventions. “When educators at school sites learn with one another about a community’s assets as well as its difficulties, when what takes place outside the walls of the school is no longer seen as universally negative, work in schools perhaps improves.”
He goes on to say that the roles of schools and communities in rearing and educating children are different but when these roles are complementary instead of adversarial schools function better. Educators must be careful not to blame poor people for their poverty and excuse “unacceptable levels of educational inequality.”
Strategies to Close the Education Gap
Hinting at strategies that close the gap for low-economic status students, Flessa suggests the importance of neighbourhoods, school and classroom based remedies and equitable policies. Exploring and expanding upon these strategies is outside the scope of his paper.
School and Classroom Based Remedies
- clearly stated and focused school mission
- safe and orderly climate for learning
- high expectations for students, teachers, and administrators
- effective recruitment, selection, preparation, and placement of teachers
- cooperative, collegial, and communal school environments
- opportunity to learn and student time-on-task
- caring, supportive, and responsive community
- disciplinary climate of the classroom
- instructional leadership by all administrators and staff members
- frequent monitoring of student progress
- differentiated instruction
School Community Connections
- understanding importance of neighbourhoods
- early childhood education to address gaps prior to entering schools
- common purpose and collective efficacy
- positive home/school relations
Equitable Policies
- policies to address personal and institutional deficit framework
- more equitable distribution of SES children across public schools
Effecting Systemic Change
It will take the cooperation of educators, policy makers, parents and communities to implement effective systemic change and reduce educational inequality for low socio-economic students.
Sources:
Flessa, Joseph J. “Poverty and Education: Towards Effective Action, A Review of the Literature." Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto for the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario. May 2007.
Whitehead, Margaret. “A Typology of Actions to Tackle Social Inequalities in Health,” J. Epidemiol. Community Health. 2007;61, 473-78
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