What Counts as Evidence and Equity?

Abstract

T he most durable and robust problem facing education research since mid-20th century is the persistence of educational inequality.Under new economic, technological, and cultural conditions, increasingly diverse populations and communities are facing persistent and emergent patterns of educational inclusion and exclusion.How we name and describe, document and understand educational equality and inequality, inclusion and exclusion, centrality and marginality, then, is the issue facing educational systems in economically hard times.In this volume, we bring together reviews on different approaches to the formation and use of evidence in educational policy and reform.We asked the authors to examine different approaches to evidence and to focus on how each reflects particular ways of defining, explaining and framing inequality and equality in educational policy and practice.They also provide critical analyses of evidence-based policies to date, discussing policy assumptions about and impacts on educational equity.This volume is a companion to the last four volumes of Review of Research in Education.In our two previous edited volumes, we focused on "what counts as learning" (Vol.30), and "what counts as knowledge" (Vol.32).There we and our editorial boards and authors attempted to broaden and expand debates over policy and practice that were becoming narrowly circumscribed in the transnational push for accountability-driven, evidence-based policy.Our goal in these volumes was to bring state-of-the-art research and theoretical perspectives across traditions and disciplines