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Barker's ecology of disadvantage and educational equity: issues of redistribution and recognition

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 43; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00220620.2011.606895

1478-7431

Carlo Raffo,

Social Policy and Reform Studies

Abstract As Barker notes, the link between disadvantage and poor educational attainments is an enduring one. Educational policy over the last 40 years or so has tended to respond to educational inequality in predominately one of two ways – attempts to raise standards across the system as a whole and attempts to redistribute resources to families, schools and neighbourhoods in mainly poor urban contexts to help improve educational outcomes. Over time these later compensatory educational policies and interventions have become known as area-based initiatives (ABIs). This article categorises and documents these important initiatives and provides evidence of impact. The key finding is that although there have been improvements in attainments linked to these interventions, there continues to be an enduring link between disadvantage and educational outcomes. In an attempt to conceptualise why this is the case, this article utilises Barker's ecological macro, meso and micro perspective on educational disadvantage and Fraser's social justice ideas of redistribution and recognition. Keywords: redistributionrecognitiondisadvantagearea-based initiativeseducational equityecologyprogressive principles Notes 2Michael Gove, Speech to Westminster Academy, September 9, 2010, http://www.michaelgove.com/content/michael_gove_speech_westminster_academy. 1Bernard Barker, The Pendulum Swings: Transforming School Reform (Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2010). 3Nancy Fraser, ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition and Participation’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Stanford: Stanford University, May 1996). 4See for example David Gilborn's work on gap theory in ‘Coincidence or Conspiracy? Whiteness, Policy and the Persistence of the Black/White Achievement Gap’, Educational Review 60, no. 3 (2008): 229–48. 5OECD, Education at a Glance, http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/21/15/41278761.pdf (2008). 6Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better (London: Penguin Books, 2009). 7Robert Cassen and Geeta Kingdon, Tackling Low Educational Achievement (York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 2007). 10Bernard Barker, The Pendulum Swings, 36. 8When one examines the Department for Education map of the spatial concentration of schools in England achieving 30% GCSE they correlate almost exactly with Wheeler et al.'s spatial map of concentrations of urban poverty in England. Ben Wheeler, Mary Shaw, Rich Mitchell, and Daniel Dorling, Life in Britain: Using Millennium Census Data to Understand Poverty, Inequality and Place (Bristol: Policy Press, 2005). 9Mark Cover, Young Participation in Higher Education (London: HEFCE, 2005/03, 2005); Richard Webber and Tim Butler, ‘Classifying Pupils by Where They Live: How Well Does This Predict Variations in their GCSE Results?’, Urban Studies 44, no. 7 (2007): 1229–53. 11Carlo Raffo, Alan Dyson, Helen Gunter, David Hall, Lisa Jones, and Afroditi Kalambouka, Education and Poverty in Affluent Countries (New York: Routledge, 2010). 12Bernard Barker, The Pendulum Swings, 41. 13Jack P. Shonkoff and Deborah A. Phillips, eds., From Neurons to Neighbourhoods. The Science of Early Childhood Development (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 2000). 14 http://www.dfes.gov.uk/londonchallenge/. 15 http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/page.asp?id=908. 16 http://www.communities.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1128087. 17 http://www.neighbourhood.gov.uk/page.asp?id=617. 18Lesley Kendall and others, Excellence in Cities: The National Evaluation of a Policy to Raise Standards in Urban Schools 2000–2003, DfES Research Report RR675A (Nottingham: DfES, 2005). http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR675A.pdf. 19Colleen Cummings, Alan Dyson, Ivy Papps, Diana Pearson, Carlo Raffo, and Liz Todd, Evaluation of the Full Service Extended Schools Project: End of First Year Report, Research Report RR680 (Nottingham: DfES Research Report, DfES Publications, 2005). http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RR680.pdf. 20See note 18. 21Edward Melhuish, Jay Belsky, and Alistair Leyland, Early Impacts of Sure Start Local Programmes on Children and Families: Report of the Cross-sectional Study of 9- and 36-Month Old Children and their Families, DfES Research Report NESS/2005/FR/013 (London: DfES, 2005). 22See for example early Head Start research: J. Love, E.E. Kisker, C.M. Ross, P.Z. Schochet, J. Brooks-Gunn, D. Paulsell, K. Boller, J. Constantine, C. Vogel, A.S. Fuligni, and C. Brady-Smith, Making a Difference in the Lives of Infants and Toddlers and Their Families: The Impacts of Early Head Start. Volume 1: Final Technical Report (Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research Inc., 2002). http://www.mathematica-mpr.com/PDFs/ehsfinalvol1.pdf. 23See note 19. 24Clyde Chitty, ‘Education and Social Class’, The Political Quarterly 73, no. 2 (2002): 208–10. 25Jo Blanden and Stephen Machin, Educational Inequality and the Expansion of UK Higher Education (London: London School of Economics, Centre for Economic Performance, 2003). 26Nancy Fraser, ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition and Participation’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Stanford: Stanford University, May 1996), 46. 27Helen Gunter, Carlo Raffo, Alan Dyson, David Hall, Lisa Jones, and Afroditi Kalambouka, ‘Policy and the Policy Process’, in Education and Poverty in Affluent Countries, ed. Carlo Raffo, Alan Dyson, Helen Gunter, David Hall, Lisa Jones, and Afroditi Kalambouk (New York: Routledge, 2010), 164. 28Jean Anyon, Radical Possibilities (New York: Routledge, 2005). 29Nancy Fraser, ‘Social Justice in the Age of Identity Politics: Redistribution, Recognition and Participation’, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values (Stanford: Stanford University, May 1996), 7. 35Ricard Riddell, ‘Urban Learning and the Need for Varied Urban Curricula and Pedagogies’, in International Handbook of Urban Education, ed. W. Pink and G. Noblit (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007), 1033. 30C. Raffo, ‘Educational Equity in Poor Urban Contexts – Exploring Issues of Place/Space and Young People's Identity and Agency’, British Journal of Educational Studies 59, no. 1 (2011): 1–19. 31Bernard Barker, The Pendulum Swings, 34. 32Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986). 33Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society and Culture (London: Sage, 1977). 34Pat Thomson, Schooling the Rustbelt Kids – Making the Difference in Changing Times (Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books, 2002), 1. 36Michael A. Lawson, ‘School–Family Relations in Context. Parent and Teacher Perceptions of Parent Involvement’, Urban Education 38, no. 1 (2003): 77–133. 37Harald Bauder, ‘Neighbourhood Effects and Cultural Exclusion’, Urban Studies 39, no. 1 (2002): 85–93. 38Amartya Sen, Development as Freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999). 39See Kerri Facer, Towards an Area-based Curriculum: Insights and directions from the Research (London: RSA, 2010) for a literature review on the different forms and approaches of area-based curricula. 40Norma Gonzalez, Luis C. Moll, and Cathy Amanti, Funds of Knowledge (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005). 41Rob Hattam, Marie Brennan, Lew Zipin, and Barbara Comber, ‘Researching for Social Justice: Contextual, Conceptual and Methodological Challenges’, Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 30, no. 3 (2009): 303–16. 42Ivor Goodson, ‘Schooling, Curriculum, Narrative and Social Future’, in The Future of Educational Change: International Perspectives, ed. Ciaran Sugrue (London: Routledge, 2008), 123–35. 43Bob Lingard, ‘Pedagogies of Indifference’, International Journal of Inclusive Education 11, no. 3 (2007): 245–66. 44David Gruenewald and Gregory Smith, ‘Making Room for the Local’, in Place-based Education in the Global Age. Local Diversity, ed. David A. Gruenewald and Gregory Smith (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2008), xiii–xxiii; Carlo Raffo, ‘Disadvantaged Young People Accessing the New Urban Economies of the Post-industrial City’, Journal of Education Policy 21, no. 1 (2006): 75–94. 45Martin Sanchez-Jankowski, Cracks in the Pavement: Social Change and Resilience in Poor Neighborhoods (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008). 48Jean Anyon, Radical Possibilities (New York: Routledge, 2005), 2–3. 46Bernard Barker, The Pendulum Swings, 172. 47David Brady, Rich Democracies, Poor People: How Politics Explain Poverty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009). 49Nancy Fraser, Scales of Justice. Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World (Cambridge, MA: Polity, 2008). 50Gareth Rees, Sally Power, and Chris Taylor, ‘The Governance of Educational Inequalities: The Limits of Area-based Initiatives’, Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis 9, no. 3 (2007): 261–74.