Putting the Radical Notion of Equality in the Service of Disrupting Inequality in Education: Research Findings and Conceptual Advances on the Infinity of Human Potential
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| Title: | Putting the Radical Notion of Equality in the Service of Disrupting Inequality in Education: Research Findings and Conceptual Advances on the Infinity of Human Potential |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Stetsenko, Anna |
| Source: | Review of Research in Education. Mar 2017 41(1):112-135. |
| Availability: | SAGE Publications. 2455 Teller Road, Thousand Oaks, CA 91320. Tel: 800-818-7243; Tel: 805-499-9774; Fax: 800-583-2665; e-mail: journals@sagepub.com; Web site: http://sagepub.com |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 24 |
| Publication Date: | 2017 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Evaluative |
| Descriptors: | Equal Education, Racial Bias, Gender Bias, Social Bias, Social Justice, Genetics, Neurosciences, Biology, Misconceptions, Cultural Influences |
| DOI: | 10.3102/0091732X16687524 |
| ISSN: | 0091-732X |
| Abstract: | Research on disrupting inequality in education can benefit from situating it within the debates on varying and often conflicting meanings of equality and its perils and promises. Especially in the wake of achievement testing and resurgent biological determinism, researchers continue to equivocate between commitment to the idea that "all" humans are equal in their core capacities versus the tendency to attribute developmental outcomes to differences in "natural" inborn talents and endowments. This chapter examines contemporary research and theorizing to address the tenet of fundamental equality to counter biological determinism laden with mythic racial, gender, and other types of unproven assumptions and biases. Drawing on a wide range of emerging positions and evidence across neurosciences, epigenetics, developmental systems perspective, and cultural-historical framework, the core argument is that all persons have "infinite potential"--incalculable in advance, unlimited, and not predefined in terms of any putatively inborn "endowments." This potential is realized in the course of "activity-dependent" generation of open-ended, dynamic, and situated developmental processes that are critically reliant upon sociocultural supports, tools, mediations, and access to requisite resources, especially through education. An educational policy along these lines would be centrally premised on the imperative to remedy the effects of discrimination and marginalization. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Number of References: | 118 |
| Entry Date: | 2017 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1146011 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | Research on disrupting inequality in education can benefit from situating it within the debates on varying and often conflicting meanings of equality and its perils and promises. Especially in the wake of achievement testing and resurgent biological determinism, researchers continue to equivocate between commitment to the idea that "all" humans are equal in their core capacities versus the tendency to attribute developmental outcomes to differences in "natural" inborn talents and endowments. This chapter examines contemporary research and theorizing to address the tenet of fundamental equality to counter biological determinism laden with mythic racial, gender, and other types of unproven assumptions and biases. Drawing on a wide range of emerging positions and evidence across neurosciences, epigenetics, developmental systems perspective, and cultural-historical framework, the core argument is that all persons have "infinite potential"--incalculable in advance, unlimited, and not predefined in terms of any putatively inborn "endowments." This potential is realized in the course of "activity-dependent" generation of open-ended, dynamic, and situated developmental processes that are critically reliant upon sociocultural supports, tools, mediations, and access to requisite resources, especially through education. An educational policy along these lines would be centrally premised on the imperative to remedy the effects of discrimination and marginalization. |
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| ISSN: | 0091-732X |
| DOI: | 10.3102/0091732X16687524 |
