Equality of Educational Opportunity: The Recent History of a Concept

Abstract

The educational problems raised by the notion 'equal educational opportunities' are many. The problems are not only of a practical nature: how to achieve equal opportunities, but also of a philosophical kind relating to the general indeterminacy of our educational aims. In so far as differential educational achievements are not solely reflective of differential abilities, the education system is both socially unjust and economically wasteful. Thus, one of the most important tasks of education is to give each child an equal opportunity to realize his innate potential regardless of irrelevant factors such as class, income, religion, race or early handicaps. However, the definitions that have been made of the notion of equal educational opportunity have undergone considerable changes and clarification is needed of how the different interpretations have developed. The English education system has been concerned to develop and support an educational elite. It was assumed that only a very small proportion of the population were capable of benefiting from higher education and that this privileged group had to be separated from the rest and nurtured by a special academic education which would prepare them for high positions in the social hierarchy. During this century the educational elite came to be known as the 'pool' of talent, the nation's intellectual resources or the 'pool of ability'. The theory behind it, as before, was that an IQ of a certain level was needed to benefit from a particular kind of education. The 'pool', therefore, was made up of the numbers with an IQ above the minimal level. The validity of the selection criterion for membership of the pool depended entirely on the validity of the testing procedures, therefore. But social factors influence performance in tests of all kinds, including IQ tests, thus raising the unsolved problem of 'culture-biased' tests.' During the early years of this century equal educational opportunity was not a burning issue. It was more or less assumed, in fact, that the education system was nurturing the able for elite membership and grammar school scholarships for bright but poor children ensured