A Study Of Educational Equity Research In The United States

Educational equity is a critical foundation for the realization of individual development and social progress.Since the middle of the 20 th century,the concept of education equity has gradually been recognized by the international community,and it became an agenda in many governments’ educational reform.Since then,the meaning of education equity has been broadened from ensuring students’ right for education to the opportunity of success for every student.With the deeping of intension,the challenge of realizing educational equity is also increasing.The educational research community should strengthen cooperation with decision makers on the issue of educational equity,and provide sufficient evidence for educational equity decisionmaking through rational and normative exploration,and jointly help to realize educational equity.The effect of research results on decision-making and practice is an important concern for researchers and decision makers,which is the indicator to measure effectiveness of educational research.However,policy makers often believe that educational research results have not effectively promoted scientific decisionmaking and began to strengthen the external control of research.In fact,the requirements of the research from the perspective of decision makers tend to ignore the independence and specificity of the research.Based on the perspective of educational research itself,this paper analyzes the relationship between educational equity research and policy,and the knowledge growth in educational equity research,and gives inspiration for promoting the interaction between “two cultures” of research and policy.The United States is the leading country of educational equity research and education equity policy,and also a high-productivity country in educational equity research.It has produced the world influential report On equality of educational opportunity(also known as “Coleman report”)which has a great impact on the process of world education equity.Therefore,this paper takes the education equity research in the United States as the analysis object to explore the relationship between educational equity research and policy and the knowledge output.In order to balance the two cultures of research and policy,based on the theoretical achievements of “research use”,“scientific policy analysis”,this paper uses the mixed research methods combine historical analysis,content analysis and case study to analyze the development of educational equity research and policy in the United States,and explore their relationship with an emphasis on “education equity research”.Furthermore,the accumulation of educational equity research and the factors motivate it will be investigated.Based on the analysis of more than 1200 documents,the main conclusions are as follows:First,there is an interactive relationship between the research and policy of educational equity in the United States.The formation of the interaction between educational equity research and policy in the United States has experienced three main stages: the pre-interaction period,the interactive formation period and the in-depth interaction period.During these periods,the research and policy have moved from“limited connection” to “mutual penetration”.Generally speaking,the interaction between the research and policy on educational equity in the United States is complicated by many factors.At the same time,the research maintains certain independence and provides research accumulation for “future” policy.Second,the interaction between educational equity research and policy in the United States forms three models.The three models are: the interaction mode of“knowledge driven”,the interaction mode of “demand pulling” and the interaction mode of impact each other.The main factors of the three interaction modes are different,the first is driven by academic profession,the second is dominated by political demand,the third is not dominant by single factor,and the academic and political interaction is permeated.The analysis of the characteristics of each interaction model shows that the quality of research,policy-makers’ preference,the transformation of research and policy discourse are the main factors that affect the interaction effectiveness of research and policy.Third,the interaction of education equity research and policy form knowledge growth.The knowledge growth of educational equity research is reflected in the deepening of the meanings and revelation of facts.Educational equity has experienced three main stages: equality of educational opportunity,education equity and social justice of education.It mainly focuses on four basic issues: equality of educational opportunity,fair investment of education,fairness of education process and fairness of educational output(result).The fact data formed in the exploration of the four basic problems of educational equity and the relationship between them provide the basis for the improvement of educational equity policy and practice promotion,and it is another important aspect of knowledge growth in educational equity research.Fourth,the educational equity research developed in this interaction.During the past century,the research methods,research creators and organization have changed significantly.The research methods of educational equity in the United States have developed from single paradigm of positivism to the current multi-paradigm of interpretionism,post-positivism and postmodernism.The creators of the research are more diverse,and the scholars from sociology,economics,organization and management,law and psychology participate in the exploration.The network of educational equity research forms a cooperation pattern with small cooperation as the main part and large and medium-sized network as the auxiliary.The research organization has changed to “new knowledge production mode”.The research on educational equity is a complex network of cooperation composed by many government sectors and social organizations.The changes of the above factors provide impetus for improving educational equity research,along with the interaction between educational equity research and policy.According to the above findings,this study poited that,the educational research and policy decision following academic logic and political logic respectively,and they should fully understand the differences between them,and respect each other’s behavioral logic.Through focusing on the solution of educational practice problems could be a strategy to promote the understanding and interaction of “two cultures”.Researchers can improve the research quality and cultivate “decision-making researchers” to provide high-quality evidence for scientific decision-making;decision makers improve “research-based decision-making” thinking mode,establish a“comprehensive transformation mechanism” of research results,and realize the maximization of “research use”.In order to promote the improvement of educational research in China,in improving the quality of educational research,we should adapt to the diversity of research issues,balance various educational research methods,improve the standardization of educational research methods and improve the construction of educational policy discipline.In improving the government scientific research management,we should strengthen the construction of basic database,provide sufficient scientific research funds,optimize the management of scientific research organizations,provide macro management norms and resources support for scientific research,and fully realize the roles of the government think tanks and think tanks in the universities.In the aspect of educational equity research,combining the reflection on the western educational equity research with the excellent traditional culture and practical problems in our country,we should strengthen the theoretical and practical innovation research based on local reality,and provides Chinese discourse for the academic research of education equity in the world.