Creating education systems that are both equitable and excellent has become a preoccupation for many systems internationally. A recent UNESCO Global Monitoring Report (UNSECO, 2020) concluded that inequality in education has increased, with the poorest and most disadvantaged shouldering the heaviest burden. One approach to addressing this issue is through collaborative approaches to school improvement. This involves strengthening relationships between schools to increase support and challenge (Armstrong & Ainscow, 2018), while also eliminating system-level practices that inhibit inclusivity. This symposium will draw lessons from five distinct country contexts (China, Austria, Scotland and England) to throw light on how collaborative activity between schools can be used as a mechanism to build capacity and facilitate knowledge mobilisation between classrooms and schools to promote equity and inclusion. At the same time, it will explore the challenges in establishing and sustaining collaborative practice between schools. Such challenges should not be underestimated. School collaboration requires building a shared purpose and common understanding and not just securing ‘buy in’. It involves driving collective work through common interest despite, and often within, cultures that promote competition, personal incentive, and introspection. In this way it entails confronting the tension between collective responsibility and individual accountability. This does not necessarily mean schools doing more, but it does imply partnerships beyond the individual school, where partners multiply the impacts of each other’s efforts. The cases we present here will explore these issues whilst also paying attention to the dangers of placing too much faith in such activity as a solution to the many and complex problems facing education systems (Kerr et al, 2014). 

To align with the conference theme, the papers in this session will individually and collectively speak to the Sustainable Development Goals 4 (Quality Education) and 10 (Reduced Inequalities). In doing so, the symposium builds on evidence suggesting that collaboration between schools has potential for fostering the capacity of education systems to respond to learner diversity (Ainscow, 2010) and help to reduce the polarisation of schools within a local area, to the particular benefit of marginalised children whose performance and attitudes to learning cause concern (Muijs et al, 2011). There is also research which suggests that the development of education systems that are effective for all children will only happen when what happens outside as well as inside a school changes (Raffo, 2011). Indeed, there is encouraging evidence of what can happen when what schools do is aligned in a coherent strategy with the efforts of other actors within a locality. In short, context matters. This might be the context of the system, the network, and/or the neighbourhood to which a school belongs, or it might be the institutional context of the school itself. Indeed, it is probably a combination of all these elements. However, it is also important to understand the ways in which context matters, by which we mean the challenges and opportunities, the culture(s), beliefs and values, the demographics, and geographies in a particular setting and the ‘niches of possibility’ with these settings where purposeful activity is most likely to happen (Hatch et al, 2021). 

The papers within this symposium will explore these issues from different vantage points of the four contexts within which each is set including the school (micro) level (Austria), the state/regional (meso) level (England and Scotland) and the system (macro) level (China). In so doing they will reveal the importance and multifaceted nature of context in furthering our understanding of collaboration as a mechanism to address inequity and support development in education. 

Ainscow, M. (2010). Achieving excellence and equity: reflections on the development of practices in one local district over 10 years. School Effectiveness and School Improvement, 21(1), 75-92. Armstrong, P., & Ainscow, M. (2018). School-to-school support within a competitive education system: Views from the inside. School Effectiveness, School Improvement, 29(4), 614–633. Kerr, K., Dyson, A., & Raffo, C. (2014). Education, disadvantage, and place: Making the local matter. Bristol: Policy Press. Hatch, T., Corson, J. and van den Berg, S.G. (2021). The Education We Need for a Future We Can't Predict. California: Corwin. Muijs, D., Ainscow, M., Chapman, C. and West, M. (2011) Collaboration and networking in education. London: Springer Raffo, C. (2011). Educational equity in poor urban contexts–exploring issues of place/space and young people's identity and agency. British Journal of Educational Studies, 59(1), 1-19 United Nations Educational, Cultural and Scientific Organisation (2020) Inclusion and Equity: All Means All. Paris: UNESCO: