The World Inequality Report 2022 concludes that Europe is the most equal region of the world. However, inequalities are increasing within countries in Europe. Drivers of inequality include gender, age, disability, employment status and citizenship, migration, and linguistic background with implications for pay and income, access to welfare, health, and education.

Awareness of such forms of social inequalities in Europe has led to several region-wide policies. For instance, the European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) - launched since 2003- seeks to identify “at risk” populations by monitoring social inequalities to inform European policies. The European Commission (2017) Pillar of Social Rights principles focus on equal opportunities providing an Action Plan for EU Member States’ policies and practices towards social cohesion by 2030 while also emphasizing equal opportunities in education. (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2020).

While educational policies in EU Member States are formulated within the overarching and harmonizing frame of the regional European policies and in response to other external instruments such as the OECD PISA, they are also revisited and adapted to fit contextual conditions, definitions, and priorities.

The “political production model” (Rappleye, 2012:125) in which policy borrowing takes place with references to elsewhere (regional or other countries reforms) can be attempts towards “legitimation, caution, scandalization, or glorification” and are- sometimes- part of political theatrics at national level through which “particular fractions of political players write their own script based on pre-existing ideological convictions”. Of course, if and when educational inequality is decreased due to such policy intervention or reforms, this becomes an indicator of its success, effectiveness and relevance (Stadelmann-Steffen, 2012) and a winning point for political players.

Educational policies, their definitions of equity, and their enactment take place at multiple level and by multiple actors and are therefore far from having straight forward impact on equity in practice. Primarily, policy change at macro level can be difficult due to path dependency, i.e., public policies and institutions tend to prioritise continuity (Pierson, 2000). At times, however, the change happens due to an internal or an external push factor (Sabatier & Jenkins-Smith, 1993). Once adapted, policies are reinterpreted at meso (institutional) and micro (practitioners) levels. Hence, apparently similar policies can well be enacted differently creating different outcomes with regards to equality. This is due to educational inequalities being multi-dimensional and accumulated across an individuals’ life course that policies fail to properly frame. It is also partially due to policy operating within its own world of meaning- sometimes divorced from the “real world” (Payne, 2017)- of schools and neighbourhoods- where students’ backgrounds (gender, disability, age, linguistic and migration backgrounds) intersect with mechanisms of education systems such as early tracking.

The empirical and qualitative studies in this symposium provide an opportunity to map and compare educational policies tackling educational inequalities across several European countries including Germany, Hungary, Lithuania, Luxembourg, and Norway. They delineate evolution of definitions and policy making process in post-socialist societies (paper 1) provide a comparative in-depth analysis of educational policies that are seemingly alike but are enacted differently and bear different impacts in two countries (paper 2), and analyze policy discourses on inclusion that are borrowed and adapted at national level but fall short of ensuring inclusion and equality in practice- even though they are formulated and implemented in an egalitarian context (paper 3).

The overall objective of this symposium is to provide a timely analysis of the evolution of concepts of diversity, equal opportunities, and inclusion in educational polices from a comparative perspective hence facilitating a better understanding of the impact of policies and their enactment at meso and micro levels to tackle educational inequalities.

European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice (2020). Equity in school education in Europe: Structures, policies and student performance [Eurydice report]. Publications Office of the European Union. Payne, G. (2017). The new social mobility: how the politicians got it wrong. Bristol: Policy Press Pierson, P. (2000). Increasing returns, path dependence and the study of politics. American Political Science Review, 94(2), 251–267. Rappleye, J (2012) Reimagining Attraction and Borrowing in Education: Introducing a political production model. In Gita Steiner Khamsi & Florian Waldow (2012) Policy Borrowing and Lending in Education, World Yearbook of Education, Routledge. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/World-Yearbook-of-Education-2012-Policy-Borrowing-and-Lending-in-Education/Steiner-Khamsi-Waldow/p/book/9781138021662 Sabatier, P., & Jenkins-Smith, H. (1993). Policy change and learning: An advocacy coalition approach. Westview. Stadelmann-Steffen, I. (2012). Education Policy and Educational Inequality—Evidence from the Swiss Laboratory. European Sociological Review, 28(3), 379–393.