Towards a philosophy of equity in educational effectiveness research: moving from utilitarianism to a Rawlsian paradigm

Abstract

The uses to which educational effectiveness research (EER) are put by policy-makers cannot be blamed on the field, but it is apparent that it has become aligned with the utilitarianism of western government policy and transnational bodies like OECD. This alignment was not consciously adopted - it is more the case that in the absence of its own asserted philosophy, EER simply defaulted to that world-view - but as the field shifts to a ‘dynamic’ model and meta-syntheses, the need to reconsider the current paradigm becomes urgent. This paper attempts to reclaim the field philosophically for the academics who work in it and for the policy-makers who rely on its science. It is beyond the scope of the paper to present a full comprehensive philosophy, but describes, as a first step towards one, a new manifesto based on John Rawls’s work on justice as fairness.

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ORCID for Anthony Kelly: orcid.org/0000-0003-4664-8585

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