This symposium explores how researchers from Denmark, Portugal and England have developed their thinking for improving the experiences of students seen as hard to reach in schools.  This is based on experiences of collaborating with schools to develop interventions aimed at changing beliefs, policy and practice.  At an ECER symposium in 2009, the researchers explored for the first time their different interventions and research.  One year on, and the group meet again to discuss the progression of their interventions and research.   

One year on, the need to improve equity in education is even more crucial given the current global economic crisis.  Students marginalised because of language, ethnicity, social class, population movements and ability are more vulnerable than ever to the educational, social and economic inequities that persist within and across national boundaries.  The OECD (2009) continues to argue that a ‘fair’ and ‘inclusive’ education for every child can improve their life chances.  However, they acknowledge that ‘much work remains to be done’, and that much can be learnt from collaborative exchange of information between countries.

At last year’s symposium it became clear that the three studies of school-based interventions were at different stages, focusing on different aspects of research.  The Danish study (Hougaard & Pederson 2009), was in its early stages of conception, the English study (Goldrick et al 2009) was three years old, and the Portuguese study (Paes 2009) focussed on lessons learnt from a long term study.  These cross national and cross stage perspectives helped to illuminate new insights into the studies.  Building on last year, this year’s symposium explores the following questions:  

• How have the issues associated with identifying and tackling inequity developed? 
• What contextual factors help or hinder the tackling of these issues?
•  What can we learn from each other?

The studies all involve researcher-practitioner partnerships aimed at better understanding the processes involved in educational equity through attempting to improve it.  As Lewin argued, you cannot understand a problematic situation until you try and change it (Schein 2001).  Making a difference in context is key through a ‘reorientation of values and goals’ (Hiebert et al 2002).  The methodologies vary and are emergent depending on discussions with practitioner partners.  Together we seek practical solutions within complex local and national education policy contexts.

The Danish paper explores their unfolding intervention and how the process of evaluation is working.  Last year, they discussed a theoretical solution to the problem of evaluating intervention ‘success’ when it is unclear what contextual success looks like.  The UK paper draws on the fourth year of its practitioner-led project, focussing on the stages identified in the intervention process, and the contextual factors that have impacted on it.  The Portuguese paper focuses on the design of a new action research project born out of lessons learnt from the project reported on last year and last year’s symposium.

This year’s symposium aims to strengthen the discussions started last year by creating a participative process through shorter presentations and a longer structured discussion.