Furthering understanding about how education policy and practice can serve to mitigate the effects of intersecting inequalities and to improve social justice within and beyond the sector.
Theme leader: ProfessorÂ
Education, more than almost any other public investment, is understood to have the potential to reduce poverty, promote growth and prosperity and to reduce inequalities. However, it is by no means guaranteed that education policies will deliver such benefits. Moreover, education policies can also reinforce inequality.
Intersecting inequalities are pervasive across all phases of education and transitions between them (early years, primary, secondary and tertiary). They are linked to poverty and a range of other markers of disadvantage and discrimination.
How do the various forms, institutions, organisations, structures and delivery mechanisms of education contribute to contemporary inequalities? How do political, economic, social and cultural aspects of historically framed contexts shape education inequalities? What is the role of education in reproducing and transforming these relationships?
We draw on a wide range of methods, working across disciplines to examine the evidence, policy and practice dimensions of these issues.
Research projects
- (funded by FCDO, DFAT and others), with the University of Cambridge and Addis Ababa University in the Ethiopia Country Research Team. Caine Rolleston and Moses Oketch (Investigators)
- Higher Education, Inequality and the Public Good in four African countries: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana (ESRC funded) - Moses Oketch, Tristan McCowan and Elaine Unterhalter (Investigators)
- Pedagogies for Critical Thinking: Innovation and Outcomes in African Higher Education (DFID/ESRC) -Â Dr Tristan McCowan (Principal Investigator), Dr Rebecca Schendel (Principal Investigator), Dr Caine Rolleston (Researcher)Â
- Accountability for gender equality in education (AGEE) - critical perspectives on an indicator framework for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). IOE in partnership with colleagues from South Africa, Malawi and the UK (DFID/ESRC; 2018-23 Elaine Unterhalter (Principal Investigator), Helen Longlands, Rosie Peppin-Vaughan and Caine Rolleston
- (funded by UKRI) - Ben Alcott with University of Cambridge and ASER India
- Â - Ben Alcott with Suman Bhattacharjea (ASER India) and Caroline Dyer (University of Leeds)
- Â - Will Brehm
- - Will Brehm