Partnership Working and Collaborative Inquiry: Promoting Educational Equity in the Context of Austerity

• In Event: The Austerity of Change: Leadership Challenges in Diverse International Democracies

Abstract

The credibility of the ‘austerity ideology’ on world economic thinking over the past five or so years has now been seriously questioned if not discredited (Krugman 2015). A growing body of research indicates that harsh austerity measures can stunt economic growth and impede economic recovery (Voszka and Kiss, 2014). Nevertheless, across the UK the cross-party political support for austerity has seen swingeing cuts in public services thereby exacerbating efforts to tackle already stubborn inequalities in communities, including educational outcomes.
Within this context, this paper considers findings from research on a national education change initiative, the School Improvement Partnership Programme (SIPP) to assess the use of collaborative partnerships to tackle educational inequity in a mature system.
The SIPP was introduced by the Scottish Government in 2013 to tackle educational inequity and promote attainment among young people in areas of deprivation. The approaches developed in the SIPP including collaboration within, between and across schools and local authorities/districts; Collaborative Action Research (CAR); and the use of evidence to drive innovation are now informing wider public education and voluntary services as they develop new strategies to tackle inequity.

Authors

• Christopher James Chapman, University of Glasgow

• Hannah Renee Chestnutt, University of Glasgow

• Stuart Hall, University of Glasgow

• Niamh Friel, University of Glasgow

• Kevin Lowden, University of Glasgow