Social disparities in education appear as a persistent issue in European societies. In Germany, educational researchers have extensively analysed and systemised the causes of educational inequality in childhood, youth, and young adulthood (Bachsleitner et al. 2022, Becker & Lauterbach 2016; Köller et al. 2019; Scharf et al. 2020). Several primary studies investigate how to overcome or prevent inequality in education (e.g., Blatter et al. 2020; Solga & Weiß 2015). While these studies primarily concentrate on single educational settings or age groups, comprehensive and systematic overviews on overcoming educational barriers in the German context are still missing. Systematic reviews offer the potential to compare findings across different topics, target groups, or contexts; to present generalisable findings for research and practice; and to point out research gaps (Gough et al. 2017; Wetterich & Plänitz 2021). Our project therefore aims at systemising studies on the effectiveness of measures to overcome educational barriers in a comprehensive way. For this purpose, we first investigate how researchers understand and conceptualise educational barriers, before analysing more closely which measures are applied and how they are evaluated.

The study considers formal, non-formal and informal educational settings, as well as all age groups from early childhood to young adulthood (0-27 years of age). The focus is on empirical quantitative or qualitative longitudinal or cross-sectional studies in social and educational science and related disciplines published since 1965 which evaluate the effectiveness of measures to overcome educational barriers in Germany. With respect to selection criteria for identifying educational barriers, a preliminary heuristic framework was elaborated. This framework considers educational barriers on multiple levels (Schmidt-Hertha 2018: 831; Wenzel 2008: 430): the micro-level (individual barriers related to knowledge, competence or dispositions), the meso-level (e.g., learning environments) and the macro-level (e.g., political discourse, political or societal frameworks). All the above-mentioned criteria are the basis for the systematic literature search, screening, coding and synthesis (Newman & Gough 2020), which are currently being carried out in an iterative process.

Using preliminary results of pilot coding (n = 9 studies, 18.01.2024), we will demonstrate which types of educational barriers are identified in the studies and how these preliminary findings contribute to further developing our initial conceptual framework. Although all three levels of educational barriers are apparent in the studies, there are also further categories within the levels. Furthermore, taking into account the interaction of these levels, an educational barrier cannot always be assigned to one single level. In many cases, it remains unclear whether a barrier results from an individual characteristic or from non-adapted structures (e.g., of the educational system) on the meso- or macro-level (see details in Lämmchen et al. in prep.). Moreover, the results provide preliminary insights into what can be considered effective “measures” to overcome educational barriers, which research designs are used for evaluation, and in which age groups and educational settings the educational barriers and measures occur. Overall, these preliminary insights suggest a multitude of definitions, concepts and designs in the research landscape, challenges which need to be considered in the systematic review.

The paper intends to underline the value of systematic literature reviews and to discuss the approach of conceptualising “educational barriers” based on research on overcoming educational inequalities. This discussion may lead to a more differentiated definition which can be further applied and elaborated in educational research. As an outlook, the effectiveness of measures observed so far as well as the next steps of the systematisation will be debated. The results and discussion issues offer a relevant contribution to a better understanding of educational barriers and effective measures for overcoming educational barriers, which is useful for subsequent research on this matter.

The methodology follows the standard steps of a systematic literature review (Newman & Gough 2020). The systematic literature search was first conducted in the German Education Index, the largest database for educational research in Germany. The search combined German terms related to the concepts “educational barrier” and “overcoming” (Jäger-Dengler-Harles et al. submitted). Next, the search results were automatically filtered for records including terms related to the concepts “social inequality”, “intentionality” (e.g., program, measure), “geographic context” (not: other countries than Germany) and “target age group or educational setting”. The resulting 35.896 records (as of 18.01.2024; searches in English and in other databases in progress) are currently in the process of screening and coding. Abstracts for inclusion have to indicate results on an evaluated measure to overcome an educational barrier. Abstracts are excluded if this is not the case (1), if it is not an empirical study (2), or if the study does not investigate the target age or learner group (3), or geographic context (4). Abstracts are included when the latter four criteria are unclear, full-texts are only included if they meet all criteria. Seven reviewers were/ are involved in screening. For ensuring systematic and consistent abstract screening, a self-developed electronic questionnaire guides the reviewers through the selection criteria and automatically inserts the decisions into the dataset. Each reviewer screened at least 500 abstracts in parallel with another reviewer and each pair agreed on between 80% and 95% of the inclusions. Non-agreements were discussed within the reviewer-pair. Further uncertainties between the pairs and in separate screening are regularly discussed in the whole team. Two of the reviewers coded eleven of the first full-texts, which had passed through the selection process, in a pilot-coding in MAXQDA, assigning codes for educational setting, age group, educational barrier (including sub-codes for the three levels) and measures. Two of the eleven texts were coded by both researchers who discussed these and the other separately coded texts in regular meetings. These discussions characterise the iterative process of screening and coding, where the criteria are continuously being sharpened. This is also why two of the eleven coded texts were excluded in a later stage of the analysis. Further coding of full-texts is currently in progress and in regular discussion. The piloted codings resulted in first conceptual reflections of the definition of “educational barrier” which will be presented in this paper.

In order to systemise the research on overcoming educational barriers, we first need to elaborate a clear understanding of how studies conceptualize and analyse educational barriers. The paper sheds light on the process of this conceptual preliminary work, which is specific to this project compared to other systematic reviews working with concepts that are already defined by the literature. We started out with a preliminary heuristic framework, which differentiated concepts of educational barriers on three levels. During the process of first screening and coding, we gained first insights into what types of educational barriers are investigated in the studies. The preliminary attempt to systemise educational barriers on the micro-, meso- and macro-level turned out to be a partial approach. In particular, it may be more appropriate to not consider the three levels as separate entities. These insights enrich and extend the preliminary framework to a more complex conceptualisation, which will be subject to further modifications in the ongoing process of the project. The initial framework will be treated as a dynamic one in order to allow a more fine-grained conceptualisation of educational barriers. Therefore, the coding scheme was modified so that educational barriers are coded more openly, i.e., only the subordinate code “educational barrier” is applied without further sub-codes. The coded content will subsequently be analysed and systemised in an inductive way. This procedure allows for further development of the definitions of educational barriers in the interplay between the heuristic framework and the text material. The resulting conceptualisation will constitute the basis for the main goal of the systematic review: the analysis of successful measures to overcome educational barriers. Additionally, the theoretic-conceptual work on educational barriers may also be useful as basis for future theoretical and empirical work in educational research.

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