Handbook on measuring equity in education

Abstract

The handbook provides a conceptual framework for measuring equality in learning; offers methodological guidance on how to calculate and interpret indicators; and investigates the extent to which measuring equity in learning has been integrated into country policies, national planning and data collection and analysis.Chapter 2 of the handbook presents a conceptual framework for equity analysis, with an emphasis on equity in learning. It begins with a summary of the philosophical literature on equity and highlights several related principles, including equality of opportunity and considerations of fairness and justice, as these relate to the distribution of education resources to compensate for unequal starting points. The chapter then proposes five categories for the classification of measures of equity: meritocracy, minimum standards, impartiality, equality of condition and redistribution. The chapter concludes with a summary of the desirable properties of equity measures.Building on the conceptual underpinning presented in Chapter 2, Chapter 3 describes different methods for measuring equity in education. It focuses on key univariate and multivariate metrics and their respective advantages and disadvantages for two of the five categories described in Chapter 2: equality of condition and impartiality. Chapter 3 begins with 14Handbook on Measuring Equity in Educationan overview of visual representations of equality of condition that can be used to gauge the degree of inequality in a dataset, among them histograms, probability density functions and the Lorenz curve. The chapter goes on to describe common metrics for measurement of inequality, organized by the kind of data to be analysed, the desired type of analysis and the type of equity measure. Chapter 3 concludes with an overview of data that can be used for analysis of equity, as well as some of the challenges that may be encountered along the way.Chapter 4 moves away from the theoretical discussions in Chapters 2 and 3 and examines the role of equity measurement in 75 national education systems, in order to offer guidance to both policymakers and other stakeholders tasked with improving equity in education. The chapter begins with an analysis of national education plans from all geographic regions to identify the presence – or absence – of equity dimensions in indicators for monitoring of progress towards increased access and learning. Based on the findings, the chapter offers a series of recommendations for expanded data collection, with an increased focus on the identification of disadvantaged groups.Chapter 5 discusses government spending as a means to increase equity in education. The chapter examines national data to assess which groups of the population benefit most from government education expenditure and describes formula funding as a way to redistribute resources to those with the greatest need. In this context, the role of household spending on education and the potential of national education accounts as a tool to identify and address inequities are also discussed.Chapter 6 concludes the handbook with a summary of the main findings and recommendations for future work on national and international education statistics.