Educational Inequalities and Conceptions of Justice. Indicators for Their Measurement

The way we think about justice, equity and education are not independent of the way we construct and interpret the indicators that emerge from international assessment exercises. Perhaps no operation has as much impact on mass media and public opinion today as the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) report. However, readings of the results of the indicators can sometimes be confusing or even contradictory.

The aim of this communication is to analyse the way in which theories of distributive justice, and in particular those dealing with equity in education, are linked to the way in which the statistical data that can be obtained from international education assessment operations are processed and informed in idicators.

The conception of equity according to a philosophical model of understanding social order establishes a criterion for considering under what conditions an observed inequality can be considered fair or not.

This is a highly topical and relevant issue given that these indicators are used by educators, politicians and communicators in order to assess the current state of education in different countries and, consequently, affect the design, implementation and evaluation of national and regional education policies that seek to improve these indicators. Utilitarians and libertarians will not use the same indicators. Neither will libertarian liberals and egalitarians. Much less Marxists. An example is given for Spain using PISA data.