Equity and Excellence in Education: SDG 4 of the 2030 Agenda in the Italian Context – Public Education Policies and Their Impact

Introduction

The 2030 Agenda (UN, 2015) is an indispensable reference for the 193 UN members who have signed it, committing themselves to building a more just and inclusive society in terms of sustainability, well-being and prosperity, with reference to people and the entire planet. It takes the form of a political responsibility to develop policies that move in the direction indicated by the document. Specifically, in this chapter we focus on the fourth goal of the 2030 Agenda, related to the need to ensure quality education for all.

Firstly, we will construct a theoretical-conceptual framework useful for guiding the actions of policymakers, school leaders and teachers under the banner of equity. Starting from the indispensable role of schools in achieving an ever-higher degree of social justice (Ferrero, 2023a; Hardiman et al., 2007; Hytten & Bettez, 2011), we will orient ourselves among the different strands of equity to position ourselves among those most consistent with this ideal. In this sense, we will be careful not to give in to interpretations that risk opening to social reproduction dynamics because they do not take into account how different starting conditions reverberate on educational pathways and to a compensatory pedagogy according to which there is a norm to strive for, with the commitment to equity being activated only as a result of a worsening of the status quo. However, reflection on social justice and equity in school systems cannot disregard a serious analysis of what can generate inequities in pupils’ educational pathways: alongside the socio-economic and socio-cultural background of pupils (classical causes of inequality), non-traditional factors of inequality emerge (Ferrer-Esteban, 2011; Ferrero, 2022; 2023bGranata & Ferrero, 2022), i.e., inequalities originated by school systems themselves due to their organizational culture and operating choices. The use of this interpretative category is crucial for at least two reasons: (1) in order to understand how schools provoke inequality dynamics for the educational action of teachers (micro), for the organization of individual institutions (meso) especially in contexts of school autonomy, for education policies (macro); (2) in order to investigate the school and intervene in the dynamics that generate inequalities.

Secondly, we will concentrate on the fourth goal of the 2030 Agenda by analyzing what urgency determined its origin and what is planned for its realization. In general, in several areas of the world, many children do not access primary education and a considerable amount of young people lack basic skills in reading, writing and mathematics, with a slight majority in the female population (OECD, 2022; UNICEF, 2021). It is precisely for this reason that the fourth goal aims to ensure that every person has access to primary and secondary education and the achievement of adequate and concrete learning outcomes, with the possibility for all to access tertiary education (Agbedahin, 2019; Gabay & Ilcan, 2018); the goals also concern the achievement of gender equality in terms of the skills and competences acquired for the exercise of citizenship and the leading of a fulfilling life. Public educational and social policies on school building and curricula, financial support for schooling and teacher education are indispensable actions for the realization of this goal. Given the interconnectedness of the goals of the 2030 Agenda, it is useful to see the interrelationships with Goals 5, 10 and 16: the issue of equity in education is absolutely connected with gender equality throughout society, with the reduction of inequalities and with the institutional organization of school systems. The analysis will be careful to capture the micro, meso and macro aspects related to the realization of the goal (Boeren, 2019).