Decoding Educational Inequality: Exploring The Appeal of Individualized Explanations and Boosting the Appeal for Structural Solutions.
A pronounced disparity in educational outcomes is evident across social classes. Working class students face more barriers to enrolling in higher education than their middle- and upper-class peers, and, among those who do enrol, are more likely to drop out and have lower attainment. Many practitioners and policy makers striving to diminish this gap focus on initiatives that target students’ internal, psychological factors, such as resilience or grit.
However, there is a growing recognition that the emphasis on such individual solutions may detract from a focus on addressing structural solutions, which is necessary to bring about a lasting reduction in inequalities (Chater & Lowenstein, 2023). Given that educational inequality (i.e., class achievement gap) is notably a systemic phenomenon (Merrow, 2017), why is there a preference for individual solutions?
The proposed research project will undertake four interconnected studies to investigate the prevalence of individual explanations over systemic ones. An initial literature review will explore what is currently known as to why individuals are inclined towards individual explanations for systemic problems. A qualitative inquiry will delve into the underlying beliefs fuelling these preferences among stakeholders and decision-makers through discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews. The results will inform a cross-sectional survey study, examining how beliefs correlate with support for specific interventions and policies. Lastly, the effectiveness of a brief intervention designed to mitigate the inclination towards individualized solutions will be tested. These studies will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing approaches to educational inequality.