In this transnational study we will seek to order and analyse the relevant but rather diffuse experiences of different countries as systematically as possible. The first requirement is obviously a common frame of reference. In this chapter, a typology is proposed for education strategies, to serve as a framework for the analyses performed in subsequent chapters.

Various criteria can be used in formulating this typology: types of stakeholder (policymakers, parents, teachers, schools, and so on), stages in educational curriculum (pre-school, primary, and so on), nature of the strategies, policy level (national versus local), and so on. We decided to adopt a double key for our reference framework, consisting of the two latter criteria. Each of them will be discussed in greater detail below.

First criterion: ‘nature’ of the strategy (equal opportunity, equal treatment, equal outcomes)

The nature of the strategies discussed below corresponds to the different nature of the various causes of educational exclusion. As we saw in the previous chapter, the literature on educational inequality suggests a basic distinction between obstacles on the ‘demand’ side of education (which can be referred to as ‘unequal opportunities’ depending on the socioeconomic environment of the pupil) and on the ‘supply’ side (‘unequal treatment’ or ‘discrimination’ on the part of educational institutions). The former group of factors are related to the socioeconomic handicaps of pupils from poor families: material or cultural deprivation, poor health, unstable family relationships, lack of social and cultural capital, and so on (that is, factors which are more or less ‘exogenous’ to the education system). The latter group have to do with the education system itself, or more precisely, the way in which educational institutions and their agents (teachers, counsellors, school principals) contribute to prejudice against pupils from lower social backgrounds.

The distinction does not imply that education policy has no impact whatsoever on the former group, the environmental circumstances. Rather, it helps in classifying strategies to promote educational equality. For example, financial incentives within education can help overcome the (exogenous) material obstacles to a successful school career, even though the education system is not responsible for the latter.