Vol. 16, Issue 1 (Year 2026)
Issue Editors: Georgeta Ion (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and Chris Brown (Durham University)
Since the second half of the 20th century, education has become the institution that best guarantees equal opportunities, and democratic governments have felt the need to develop policies aimed at alleviating the effects of social inequalities of origin on access, schooling conditions. or educational outcomes. The persistence of the reproduction of inequalities, with more or less similar intensity, across all education systems in developed countries raises questions as to how best to implement policies and educational practices that can offset social differences and provide a legitimate grounding for meritocratic system and fair access to social positions. In this global context, achieving a sustainable improvement in schools addressing the inequalities that can generate differences in the students’ learning outcomes, especially from disadvantaged contexts, represents a significant challenge facing countries worldwide (e.g., OECD, 2012; UNESCO, 2015).
Attaining sustainable student success and contributing to social development requires reducing school failure and promoting a school system that combines quality with equity in a complex and challenging current socio/ economic context. Understanding equity as applying and implementing strategies oriented to reduce the obstacles students might face due to social or personal circumstances, such as gender, ethnic origin or family background (Eurydice, 2019) that can prevent them from achieving their educational potentials and achieving desirable levels of outcomes. Despite the numerous efforts made at international, European, and local levels (e.g., in Spain, the report by Fundacio Bofill (Riera, 2019)), educational reforms have failed to contribute to the improvement of the educational systems and to address students outcomes effectively. Achieving school equity still represents an unsolved issue. In this context, the special issue will address questions: how can the most recent evidence and research data be used to inform efforts to address equity and inclusion in schools? How can schools and individual teachers be empowered to take direct action on their decisions in systems where top-down reforms have not yielded the desired results?
The special issue welcomes contributions that aim to improve school equity, reducing the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged outcomes through the promotion of a research evidence-informed practice.
The special issue will expect authors to send their contributions exploring: 1) ways/ strategies of promoting research evidence at school and class level to facilitate the students’ inclusion; 2) examples of successful inclusion interventions leading to relevant research evidence in the field; 3) innovative theoretical perspectives and new ways of approaching EIP for school inclusion; 4) Technological advances such as AI and big data to deal with the inclusive education.
Article submission timeline:
30 September 2024: submission of paper title and abstract with up to five keywords [250 words max.]
30 June 2025: paper submission [between 5,000 and 7,000 words]
March 2026: publication of the focus issue of the CEPS journal
Please send the abstract to editors@cepsj.si clearly stating the title of the focus issue.
Manuscripts should be from 5,000 to 7,000 words long, including the abstract and reference list. They should be written in UK English. Submissions should be original and unpublished work not currently under review by another journal or publisher.
When preparing the manuscript, please follow our author’s guidelines, which are available here: https://cepsj.si/index.php/cepsj/about/submissions.
References
OECD. (2012). Equity and quality in education: Supporting disadvantaged students and schools. OECD.
Riera, A. (2019). Reptes de l’educació a Catalunya. Anuari 2018 [Challenges of education in Catalonia. Yearbook 2018]. Fundació Jaume Bofill.
UNESCO. (2015). Education for all 2000–2015: Achievements and challenges. UNESCO.
