Public policy on democratizing access to education for marginalized groups

Citation

Gatta, M. (2006), "Public policy on democratizing access to education for marginalized groups", Equal Opportunities International, Vol. 25 No. 7. https://doi.org/10.1108/eoi.2006.03025gaa.001

Public policy on democratizing access to education for marginalized groups

Public policy on democratizing access to education for marginalized groups

For decades, public policy leaders, researchers, and advocacy groups have agreed, for the most part, that investment in education has positive rewards for individuals and society. Increased education is positively correlated with increased labor market rewards, enabling individuals to attain economic self-sufficiency, and providing countries with highly skilled workforces that are able to compete in the global marketplace. Based on this reasoning political officials, educators, researchers, and the like have issued calls for polices that will "democratize access to education", so that all individuals have educational opportunities. Yet despite decades of hearing this request, many people, particularly those in marginalized populations (based on race, ethnicity, gender, educational attainment, age, incarnation status, disability, etc; along with the intersections of these identities), still remain left behind. The question is how this bold "sound-byte" can become a reality in our world.

Although significant gains have been made in educational attainment worldwide, we are nowhere near the point of celebration. In every country across our globe, groups of individuals have little or no access to quality education. The question is how can public policy structure opportunities for individuals to gain the education and skills needed to succeed in today's global world. There has been much research documenting the changing skill needs and educational requirements of local and global labor markets. Yet the articulation of the ways in which members of society can attain the education and skills training needed, and the role of the public sector to facilitate that process effectively is often left unclear. Although public policy officials must find ways to direct education to all individuals, often the needs of marginalized populations are not fully understood or addressed by policy. Moreover, existing policies may do more to hinder than promote educational access, than actually provide access to marginalized groups.

The articles in this special issue of Equal Opportunities International explore the ways in which public policy can be used to move forward agendas that promote access to educational opportunities for marginalized populations from many vantage points. Indeed, the underlying premise of this special issue is that public policy must employ a framework that takes into account the experiences of marginalized groups in educational venues, and indeed be crafted, implemented, and evaluated based on the equity it offers. In addition, equity in education must be widely understood to include the entrée to education, fair treatment in educational programs, and unbiased access to educational resources and supports, regardless of social location. Not everyone has an equal chance of being in poverty or escaping poverty. Moreover, everyone does not equally experience the impacts of the education, welfare, and workforce development policies. In order to truly democratize access to education, we ensure that the needs of marginalized populations are met in the formulation and implementation of policies. To do so policy frameworks must be holistic, taking into account the level, quality, and distribution of educational access, resources, and opportunities from an equity perspective.

The papers in this special issue represent many different countries, populations, and disciplines, yet what they all have in common is the way that they evaluate how public policy can respond to the diverse and complex forms of educational exclusion in our world. In doing so, the papers also share a wide range of policy interventions targeted to marginalized populations to democratize educational access. Yet what also emerges from this collection of papers is that there is not an artificial dichotomy between research and policy. Instead in several of the papers, the researchers were integrated within the policy process, and in some cases spearheaded the policy impetus. Moreover, in all the papers the authors clearly demonstrate how their research findings not only critique the existing policies, but also provide recommendations to rethink policies based on these findings. This connecting theme of the papers was not intended from the start, but points to a critically important point – policy and research are linked. Sound research informs and shapes policy, and the successes or failures of policies inform research. Taken together, all the articles in this issue serve to enrich our understanding of the value of equity research and frameworks in order to move policy forward that truly democratizes access to education.

To accomplish this, the issue opens with Shanta Pandey, Min Zhan, and Youngmi Kim's article "A Bachelor's degree for women with children: a promising pathway to poverty reduction", in which they document that despite positive labor market effects of college education for US mothers, welfare reform policies have discouraged post-secondary education and instead promote work (often in low-wage jobs) and marriage. Pandey and her co-authors challenge the conceptualization of "mother" by demonstrating that differences exist both between married and single mothers, and perhaps more importantly, within groups of married and single mothers. In doing so, they dispel the myth that "marriage" is the solution to women's poverty, as even with marriage some mothers and their children continue to live in poverty. After demonstrating the clear benefits of post-secondary education, Pandey et al. challenge US welfare reform policies that have a strong inclination to put poor mothers into marriages and low-wage work and, instead, suggest ways to better invest in the formal education of mothers.

In a similar vein, Moses W. Ngware, Eldah N. Onsomu, David I. Muthaka, and Damiano K. Manda explore the factors that influence access to secondary education in Kenya, a country in which more than three-fourths of secondary school age population does not have access to secondary education. Demonstrating the interplay of both supply and demand side factors in a family's decision to enroll a child into secondary education, Ngware and his coauthors use their research to suggest a comprehensive national policy framework that will support the estimated 200 per cent increase in secondary school enrollment by 2015.

Pandey et al. and Ngware et al.'s macro-policy papers are followed with a more micro-analysis of discriminatory practices that impede the access that certain groups may have to formal schooling in Eastern Europe and Latin America. An important cornerstone of educational reform policies is the use of standardized testing to serve as a gatekeeper to education so that the process is "objective". Yet two papers in this issue make a clear case that such assessments are not at all as objective as they are purported. Anna Kende and Maria Nemenyi's article "Selection in education: the case of roma children in Hungary" demonstrates how personal biases and attitudes of test examiners and counselors serve to disproportionately segregate Roma children in special education, while the "objective" examinations themselves tell us little about children's abilities. Similarly in "Equity issues associated with the change of college admissions tests in Chile", Mladen Koljatic and Monica Silva demonstrate how a policy change to attempt to make aptitude tests for colleges in Chile more equitable was riddled with challenges and problems that seriously question the effectiveness of the policy change. Their paper is quite useful in understanding the policy process of promoting equity mechanisms in education and serves as a key guide in educational reform processes, highlighting that even if the intention is for equity, it does not always materialize in practice.

The next set of papers in the issue takes the discussion a step further to focus on programs that are designed as policy responses to differential access to education. It is striking in each of these papers to see the collaborative role of the policy scholar in the intervention. Jillian M. Duquainne-Watson's article "Understanding and combating the digital divide for single mother college students: a case study" shares the development and implementation of grassroots college organization that provided single mothers in college access to the computer technologies and support systems that were central to their ability to fully participate in college courses. Johanna E. Foster and Rebecca Sanford, in their article "Does gender shape women's access to college programs in US prisons?" shares the current state of on-site education programs in America's prison system, noting the dearth of educational opportunities, and the call for policymakers to take an intersectional approach in crafting such programs to ensure equity for men and women. In a companion piece to this article, Rebecca Sanford and Johanna E. Foster's, "Reading, writing, and prison education reform? The tricky and political process of establishing college programs for prisoners perspectives from program developers", share the process of developing and implementing a college education program in a women's prison.

The Professional Insights section of this issue shares the experiences of Dianne Mills McKay who, for decades, has advocated for gender equity in education in the USA. A significant portion of this interview focuses on her work to establish a Council on Gender Parity in Labor and Education for the state of New Jersey, which oversees the State's efforts to provide gender equity in education and workplaces. Through this first of its kind council in the USA, McKay demonstrates how research on equity informs and shapes the policy recommendations and programs that the Council advocates.

Finally, Heather McKay reviews Gerri Holloway's book Women and Work in Britain Since 1840, a significant resource for students and scholars to understand the women's employment in Britain over the past century and half, and provides the necessary historical context to inform our policies today.

Overall, the papers in this special issue illustrate the complexities of developing, implementing, and evaluating public policy with an eye toward democratizing access to education. While this special issue cannot, of course, provide the definitive answers to all the challenges involved in moving forward such policy agendas, what it does accomplish is to enrich the current scholarly discourse by illustrating the diverse approaches and needs of this field. Indeed, this special issue is a central resource that can advance what must be a continuing focus of our world: how do we democratize access to education? At minimum the papers in this issue make apparent that, from the perspective of fairness and economic necessity, policy must be transformed so that everyone, regardless of social location, has the opportunity to reach their full potential.

Mary Gatta