Periodic Reporting for period 1 - PIONEERED (Pioneering policies and practices tackling educational inequalities in Europe)
Reporting period: 2021-03-01 to 2022-02-28
Educational inequalities in terms of systematic disadvantages and advantages in the access to education and the uptake of education – being structured by ascriptive factors such as social origin, immigrant background, gender and (dis)ability as well as their intersections – are a problem both for the individual and the society. Individuals with low educational achievement and educational attainment suffer from poor life chances on the labour market and beyond, namely a lower status attainment, lower income, higher risk of unemployment, lower political participation opportunities, lower health and finally even a lower lifetime expectancy. Educational inequality also affects societies, as higher educational equity goes along with a higher skill level in general and higher economic prosperity, but also a higher democratization level. PIONEERED addresses the social problem of educational inequalities attempting to identify pioneering policies (e.g. educational and social policies) and practices in formal and non-formal educational settings that may help to tackle inequalities and in particular disadvantages of certain vulnerable groups. The objectives of PIONEERED include a) developing an innovative methodological framework and reviewing the state-of-research, b) analysing educational policies on which inequalities and vulnerable groups are addressed by national (or regional) policies, and how polices attempt to reduce inequalities, c) analysing existing data in a new way to identify intersectional inequalities throughout educational careers and drivers of such advantages and disadvantages, and d) carrying out practice research in schools and informal educational settings and analysing the ways through which educational inequalities are tackled by different actors.
The project experienced a successful kick-off in March 2021, accompanied by a virtual consortium meeting. The first months were dominated by working on a project management guide, website and social media account (WP1 and 7), preparing ethical guidelines and ethical deliverables (WP8), and gathering the state-of-research for the countries represented in the PIONEERED consortium and developing a methodological framework for both the quantitative and the qualitative parts of the project (WP2). This was done engaging all project partners very frequently. The core results of this research step center around three pillars: a) the huge research gap regarding intersectional inequalities in education and particularly with regard to holistic approaches, b) the MILC approach that was refined bringing together multilevel, intersectionalities and life course perspective, and c) the aspect of the pioneering as something that transcends previous knowledge and follows an open approach. Later in the first year, the policy analysis started – all project partners gathered potentially effective educational policies and wrote up country reports (WP3). A major result of this work package revealed that a combination of educational policies and social policies (directed towards labour market and life chances in general) is not common to all countries, but seems to be meaningful. Intersectionalities are only very rarely addressed in policies, while in some countries even educational inequalities are not addressed at all in policies. The findings of the methodological framework and policy analysis work package were used to enrich a first policy brief on educational inequalities. The first year was already marked by a first open access publication on the project and – in particular – on the fruitful linkage of educational and social policies.
The project already went beyond the state-of-the-art for its very open and holistic mixed-method perspective. As researchers from various disciplines as well as conceptual and methodological perspectives discussed the different work packages and frequently gathered about approach, research steps and findings, all participants got to a new and much more sophisticated understanding. A major impact on society does relate to both the first open access publications, but also to joined research steps with stakeholders. The PIONEERED partners frequently discussed the research issue and first findings with stakeholders of national and international importance. This meant an increasing awareness of stakeholders towards the research issue of educational inequalities. The mapping steps – state-of-research (WP2), policies on educational inequalities (WP4), data sets to analyse educational inequalities (WP5) – brought together a unique European data base that can be used to study the important issue of systematic variations in the access and uptake to education.
Important progress also has been achieved regarding the how-to-analyse pioneering practices among the different country and education system contexts. A major task was to combine the MILC approach and its confirmatory nature with a going beyond to identify and analyse pioneering policies and practices.
Important progress also has been achieved regarding the how-to-analyse pioneering practices among the different country and education system contexts. A major task was to combine the MILC approach and its confirmatory nature with a going beyond to identify and analyse pioneering policies and practices.