Lessons in Educational Equality: Successful Approaches to Intractable Problems Around the World

All children and youth, regardless of the situations into which they were born, deserve the opportunity to improve their life chances by acquiring the knowledge and skills that will help them thrive in the future. As the world lags far behind the Millennium Development and Education for All goals, swift, targeted, and effective action is needed to improve both access and quality in education.

Bringing together evidence-based recommendations and in-depth case studies of successful programs from around the world, this edited volume details effective educational equity initiatives and assesses how these models could be improved, expanded, and adapted to diverse contexts. Lessons in Educational Equality is uniquely comprehensive in its scope and its focus on how best to increase educational equality from early childhood to the tertiary level, and in contexts that span the geographic and political spectrum.

This volume offers concrete solutions to barriers based on gender, income, disability, race, ethnicity, and language. Chapters on gender address equity for female students in tertiary science and engineering programs, primary and secondary education for socially excluded girls, and equitable early childhood education for boys and girls. Socioeconomic equity is examined in chapters on promoting equal opportunities in secondary school across social class, quality primary education for the poor, and early childhood strategies for closing the achievement gap. Chapters on disability detail strategies for making inclusive education a part of the Millennium Development goals and for increasing access and achievement in tertiary education. Approaches to racial, ethnic, and linguistic equity are presented in chapters on bridging the gap in higher education, improving primary and secondary school quality and outcomes, and providing well-designed early childhood education.

Jody Heymann is the Founding Director of the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. An internationally renowned researcher on public policy and equity, Heymann has authored more than 180 publications, including thirteen books. She has served as an advisor to policymakers around the world. Her work has been featured widely in Business Week, Inc. Magazine, Portfolio.com, Forbes, CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Financial Times, MSNBC, Good Morning America, and Fox News, among other leading national and international media outlets.

Adèle Cassola conducts comparative research at the Institute for Health and Social Policy at McGill University. There, she leads an initiative analyzing the protections established in the constitutions of all UN member states across a number of life contexts in which discrimination can occur, including education, work, health, family, and political and civic participation.