Cycles of Disadvantage: Poverty, Education, Inequalities and Social Exclusion

This seminar was given on the origins and outcomes of educational inequality. Social inequality in education refers to differences between social groups (by class, ethnicity or gender) in average educational opportunities, treatment or outcomes. Unequal opportunities occur as a result of factors external to the school that have an impact on a child’s opportunity to access educational programmes and to learn and achieve on them. Unequal treatment refers to differences in educational experience encountered in educational institutions (and so include ‘school effects’ and ‘peer effects’).