Equality in Education

Kathleen Lynch

Issue 360, vol.90, Winter 2001

The State promotes the inequality. In the case of a person who, for instance, completes four years of higher education, the State's financial investment will be two-and-a-half times greater than the investment it has made in a person who has completed two years of second-level education. The State continues to pay most of current expenditure for fee-paying schools, and a good deal of capital expenditure.

Schools play their own part in maintaining inequality. Some demand fees, and, even of those who do not, some may put pressure on parents to make voluntary contributions.

Socio-cultural inequality is present whenever a person's status as a member of society (a status meriting fundamental respect) is denied recognition - a denial usually having an alleged rationale in "difference" based on factors such as race, gender, age, marital/family status, sexual orientation, physical/mental capacities, ethnicity, political/religious affiliation.

Structures of education in Ireland can foster socio-cultural inequality - rather than its opposite, "diversity" - because they entail segregation : 35% of primary students and 42% of second-level students are in single-sex schools; 99% of primary schools are denominationally owned and controlled, as are 60% of second-level schools; 47% of disabled persons attend `special' schools.

Political inequality manifests itself whenever dominance and subordinacy - rather than inclusivity - characterize the use of power in decision-making. Democratisation is called for at all levels of an educational institution. In the future, even the student body will demand no less - since so many of them are already active side by side with adults in the workplace.

Promoting equality in the affective domain is about recognizing that human beings are not just rational actors but emotional actors on the stage of life; it is about recognizing that the emotions are as endemic to our humanity as is our rationality; it is about fostering social conditions and a quality of life marked by solidarity, intimacy, trust, care.

Kathleen Lynch, Equality Studies Centre, UCD.