Members: Salma Baghajati (Austria), Anna Maria Roncoroni (Italy), Catherine Reid (United Kingdom), Colm O’Reilly (Ireland), Birgit Broekhoven (Netherlands)
Leader: Lineke van Tricht (Netherlands)
Mission Statement:
Equity in education is a topical issue in many countries worldwide. This is visible the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 4 (inclusive and equitable quality education) (United Nations General Assembly, 2015) and the European Commission’s declaration that ‘equitable education is indispensable for cohesive societies’ (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 2016). The European Commission defines equity in education as follows:
“the extent to which individuals can take advantage of education and training, in terms of opportunities, access, treatment and outcomes, independent of their socioeconomic status” (European Commission, Joint Research Centre, 2016).
Although equity in education has been on the European agenda for many years, the achievement gap between students from families with high and low socioeconomic status (SES) has remained the same in many countries and widened in some (OECD, 2023).
Equity in gifted education seems to be a rather unexplored field of research in Europe. Whereas the United States, New-Zealand, and Australia have a long history of studying inequity in gifted education, very few studies can be found in Europe. This may be due to the fact that so many languages are spoken in Europe, so there may be more research on the topic than we are aware of, because of studies published in other languages than English.
The mission statement of this Specialist Interest Group is to come up with a European research agenda on equity in gifted education. The first step would be to do a literature review on the theme in European countries in various languages, in order to establish the status quo. After that, a European research agenda, presenting the most important and urgent themes, will be presented to both the European Council for High Ability and the European Commission’s European Education Area (or any other relevant EU body). The third step is to find funding needed to carry out the ECHA Research Agenda on Equity in Gifted Education.
European Commission, Joint Research Centre, Araújo, L., Dinis da Costa, P., Hippe, R., (2016). Equity in education in Europe, Publications Office. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2791/255948
OECD (2023), PISA 2022 Results (Volume I): The State of Learning and Equity in Education, PISA, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/53f23881-en
United Nations General Assembly (2015). Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 25 September 2015. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. United Nations.