Increased Focus on Inequality, Equity, and Social Inclusion in Educational Policy?
5.1 General remarks
An examination of educational reform activities in Europe between 1999 and 2024 reveals a clear trend: a steady increase in the number of reforms registered in international policy databases (see Chapter 3 in this report). Annual reform counts rose from a modest 6–13 reforms per year during 1999–2007 to an average of more than 20 reforms in the early 2020s. While this development might signal an intensification of educational policymaking across Europe, it also raises urgent methodological and interpretive questions about the validity and comparability of such data over time.
The upward trend in policymaking could reflect an acceleration in response to broader issues such as socio-economic pressures, increased global competitiveness in education, international governance mechanisms, or compliance with European and other international treaties and directives. Scholars such as Stephen J. Ball (2012) and Gita Steiner-Khamsi (2021) have underlined that global policy discourses have had a growing influence in education, especially through the proliferation of international and cross-country assessment regimes and standardisation practices, e.g. PISA, PIRLS, TIMSS, and the Bologna Process1. This has driven national governments to adopt new reforms and reform initiatives to meet international standardisation requirements and to address various and shifting national performances in international assessment regimes. In this perspective, the increase in reforms can be interpreted as a general trend resulting from broader globalisation dynamics, competitive positioning vis-à-vis other countries, and compliance with international governance initiatives. However, without this broader perspective, the increase in reforms analysed in this report might also reflect a growing emphasis on implementing reforms that specifically target inequality, equity, and social inclusion.
Over the last 25 years, the European Union, UNESCO, OECD, and other international organisations have increasingly focused on inequality, equity, and inclusion, producing a number of major treaties and directives. It is highly likely that this heightened international focus has influenced the rise in reforms within European countries that seek to mitigate inequality and support equity and social inclusion.
Test regimes such as PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS, and broader soft governance initiatives such as the Bologna Process, have not merely been a driving force behind policy development in general, as mentioned above. In addition to enabling cross-country comparison, benchmarking regimes like PISA, PIRLS, and TIMSS have made inequalities in educational outcomes visible across social groups, by providing data for both research and policy-making that is especially suitable for identifying inequality in educational achievement. Beyond their general policy impact, these assessment regimes can also be expected to have provided evidence and justification for policy interventions aimed at addressing the inequalities highlighted in the data.
Beyond introducing measures related to standardisation and quality assurance, the Bologna Process (1999) also aimed to create inclusive and accessible educational pathways for students, thereby underpinning a political focus on reducing inequality and exclusion across European countries. Similar European strategies, e.g. the Lisbon Strategy (2000–2010) and the Europe 2020 Strategy (2010–2020), have emphasised social inclusion and education as key areas of focus, thereby further propelling educational reforms addressing these issues.
The apparent increase in identified reform initiatives may suggest an increased focus on and awareness of inequality in education. Conversely, it also raises concerns about the reforms’ ability to address and achieve their stated aims. As underlined by Michael Fullan, rapid and frequent reform implementation can overburden administrative capacities and complicate implementation processes (Fullan 2025). Likewise, in an OECD report, Schleicher notes that such way of implementation has been shown to cause fatigue among teachers and administrative layers, leading to subpar implementation processes and limited progress in achieving reform goals (Schleicher 2021).
Furthermore, some scholars emphasise that policy proliferation might reflect national compliance with international educational norms and standards – often referred to as institutional isomorphism or convergence – which guarantees little to no substantive changes in educational quality (Verger, Novelli & Altinyelken 2012). Rather, reform implementation under rapid policy cycles may encourage performative rather than transformative changes (Ball 2000).
Lastly, the apparent rapid reform implementation identified in the datasets connects to a broader and perhaps deeper issue in politics and policy development. In a large-scale and ongoing review of the state of Danish democracy in the 21st century, it was recently found that an overly burdened Danish Parliament processed legislation and policy initiatives at an unprecedented rate compared with previous decades. This discovery aligns with the findings of this report at a broader level. Reviewing the legislative pressure on e.g. the Danish Parliament, the authors have raised concerns about the implications for democracy at large. The growing workload on lawmakers leaves less time for democratic debate as well as for gathering and utilising research-based support for legislative processes. Moreover, Parliament and the sitting Government have unequal resources to support their work, typically favouring the Government. As part of the response to these developments, the process of developing legislation and policies has become increasingly dependent on external stakeholders’ contributions (Pedersen, Mortensen, & Herby 2025). A similar trend is present in education, where various international non-governmental actors contribute to shaping educational policy, which, as has been reported, may undermine democratic transparency and lead to inferior policy responses to educational challenges (Verger, Novelli & Altinyelken 2012; Lingard & Sellars 2013; Sahlberg 2016).
Clearly, drawing firm conclusions about whether the increase in reforms surveyed in this report reflects a wider increase in educational reforms in general, or specifically an increase in reforms targeting inequality, equity, and inclusion, requires caution. A further critical examination of the datasets may reveal that the development in identified reforms is partly attributable to changing practices in data registration and categorisation among European countries, rather than to an actual increase in policy production or ‘policy churn’. According to Steiner-Khamsi (2014), international organisations have responded to demands for an increasingly data-driven policy environment by refining their methods of data collection and categorisation. Databases, such as those provided by Eurydice and the OECD, are likely to have undergone development and increased digitalisation over the last 25 years, increasing the availability and granularity of data.
Thus, the apparent increase in educational reforms aimed at addressing inequality, equity, and inclusion might be genuine, it might reflect broader tendencies of ‘policy churning,’ or it might reflect developments in data registration and categorisation practices. This indeterminacy underscores the need for both empirical caution and interpretive reflexivity, since without due consideration, the developments and identified trends risk conflating changes in administrative reporting practices with substantive transformations in educational policy. This introduces a central methodological dilemma: to what extent is it possible to compare different national reform initiatives across time when the underlying datasets themselves develop and are refined? As demonstrated by Grek (2009), educational governance is largely guided by data that establishes normative frameworks to determine what counts as legitimate policy interventions. When the underlying data infrastructure of policy decision-making changes over time, so does the basis for comparative analyses and conclusion.
It is also important to emphasise that the statistics recorded in Chapter 3 should be treated with caution. We cannot assume that the databases are complete, nor that the methodology for including an initiative as a ‘reform’ is fully consistent across countries. In some cases, reforms may appear only once in the database or be represented in a simplified form, which means that significant amendments or iterations might not be fully captured. These limitations further complicate cross-national comparisons and highlight the need for methodological transparency when interpreting trends. It also calls to one’s attention the potential and need for further developing and systematise data registration practices among the European countries to foster greater potential for cross-country analysis and comparation.
5.2 Evaluation as key for disseminating good practices
Evaluation is a crucial component in assessing the impact of educational reforms. The effective use of social resources – including financial, political, human, and cultural capital – should be closely linked to evidence regarding the outcomes of implemented changes. Without systematic evaluation, it is difficult to determine whether the investments made translate into meaningful improvements in teaching, learning, and equity. However, a recurring issue that emerged across the analysis concerns the limited or entirely absent evaluation of educational reforms. Despite the scale and ambition of many reform initiatives, systematic mechanisms to assess their outcomes remain weak or even non-existent. Out of the 431 reforms examined in this analysis, as many as 300 had no identifiable evaluation component recorded by the project team.
The term identifiable is crucial here, especially for an international audience: it is highly likely that some form of evaluation was conducted, at least partially, but no information about it was provided in the databases. Regardless of the underlying reason – whether evaluations were not conducted or not broadly disseminated – the result is a significant gap in systematic assessment and underscores the need to integrate evaluation as a standard element of educational reform processes. In numerous cases, reforms are implemented with substantial investment of time and resources, yet without clear frameworks to measure whether the intended objectives have been achieved. While such evaluations may take place, at least partially, at the national level, it would be valuable to strengthen similar mechanisms within international or cross-institutional contexts. Establishing shared spaces for evaluation would enable the exchange of good practices, facilitate comparative learning, and support the development of common quality standards. This collaborative approach could also help identify context-sensitive strategies that work across diverse educational systems. The absence of evaluation not only limits the possibility of evidence-based reflection but also weakens institutional learning: policymakers and educators are left without reliable data to understand what works, under what conditions, and for whom.
Even when evaluation processes are present, they often lack methodological rigor. The criteria used to judge success are rarely made explicit, making it difficult to assess whether outcomes are measured against pedagogical, social, or administrative goals. Moreover, evaluative approaches tend to focus on short-term outputs – such as compliance with new regulations or completion of procedural targets – rather than long-term impacts on teaching quality, student engagement, or equity in access to learning opportunities. As a result, the knowledge produced through these assessments provides only a partial and often superficial picture of reform effectiveness.
Another layer of complexity arises from the unstable policy environment in which reforms take place. Frequent political changes and shifting ministerial priorities lead to the introduction of new initiatives before the effects of previous ones can be properly understood. This discontinuity disrupts longitudinal analysis and makes it difficult to distinguish between reforms that failed to deliver meaningful results and those that were prematurely abandoned for political reasons. From a broader perspective, the lack of robust evaluation mechanisms reflects deeper systemic challenges within governance culture. Strengthening evaluation frameworks – by embedding them from the design phase, ensuring methodological transparency, and maintaining continuity across political cycles – would not only improve the quality of reform processes but also support a culture of reflective policymaking grounded in empirical evidence.
A noteworthy example of systematic evaluation can be found in Finland, where all educational reforms are assessed on a regular four-year cycle. This structured approach ensures that reform outcomes are not only monitored but also continuously informed by evidence. The Finnish evaluation framework is guided by four key questions, one of which focuses specifically on the state of equality and equal opportunities in education. Within this dimension, three distinct areas receive particular attention: the differentiation of competence, equal opportunities, and the accessibility of education alongside learners’ participation. By embedding these considerations into the core of the evaluation process, Finland demonstrates how sustained, evidence-based assessment can support both the quality and the equity of educational reforms.
In conclusion, addressing the current gaps in the evaluation of educational reforms is essential for building more resilient education systems. Without systematic assessment, reforms remain isolated interventions rather than components of an evolving policy systems. Establishing consistent evaluation practices, supported by transparent criteria and longitudinal data, would allow policymakers and practitioners to learn from both successes and failures.
5.3 Measures applied – towards good practices
In the reforms under analysis, a wide array of approaches, measures, and instruments were employed. Some were primarily formative, intended to cultivate the civic dispositions and egalitarian orientations that support sustained democratic engagement, embedding equality and inclusion as basic cognitive and behavioural frameworks within institutional practice and educational content. Others formed a second preventive strand, seeking to forestall emerging problems. A third strand comprised compensatory measures designed to address existing deficits or inequalities. Regardless of type, these measures may be directed at the general population of children and young people across all or selected ISCED levels or targeted more specifically toward particular groups.
The first category encompasses the broadest scope of activities, aimed at fostering an inclusive community. A pertinent example can be found in Denmark, where the Danish Parliament enacted the Educational Environment Act (Lov om elevers og studerendes undervisningsmiljø) in 2001. According to §1 of the Act, ‘pupils, students and other participants in public and private education are entitled to a good educational environment so that teaching can take place in a safe and healthy manner. The educational environment in schools and educational institutions […] must promote the participants’ opportunities for development and learning and therefore also includes the educational institution’s psychological and aesthetic environment.’ In 2017, the Act was amended to require all primary and secondary educational institutions to develop an anti-bullying strategy, including measures against cyberbullying. Collectively, these legislative efforts aim to ensure the inclusivity of educational institutions and build resilient, democratic societies. Similar educational principles are currently being formulated in most European countries.
Within the category of preventive measures, several key approaches can be identified. These include the extension of compulsory education to cover part or all of the preschool period, the use of various incentive-based strategies aimed at engaging families, and the introduction of mechanisms designed to reduce access barriers or to guarantee equal access to appropriate infrastructure and adequate learning conditions. The latter may include, for example, fee reduction, the provision of warm meals, guaranteed transportation, or free educational materials. An additional important dimension involves the development of curricula and teaching methods that address the diverse needs of children, as well as structural interventions—most notably, the postponement of selective thresholds to a later stage in a child’s educational trajectory. Finally, a crucial aspect is the adequate preparation of teachers and the provision of appropriate professional support, which, however, is not an explicit assumption in many reform agendas.
The starting point for compensatory measures is the recognition of explicit and hidden costs that may increase inequalities. Furthermore, significant regional disparities—particularly between urban and rural areas—as well as differences linked to socioeconomic status (SES) create unequal opportunities for access and quality. Compensatory strategies therefore aim to mitigate these inequalities by providing targeted financial support, subsidies, or free services, and by addressing structural gaps in provision. Such measures often include programs designed to reduce the impact of poverty on educational outcomes, ensuring that children from disadvantaged backgrounds can benefit from early education on equal terms with their peers. Most importantly, these interventions seek to prevent children from dropping out of the education system altogether, as early disengagement tends to reinforce cycles of disadvantage and social exclusion.
Despite the multiplicity of measures implemented across countries, educational inequalities remain highly visible. Certain groups—such as children from low-income families, linguistic minorities, or those living in rural areas—continue to experience systemic disadvantages. Moreover, these disparities are often shaped by intersectionality, where multiple factors of exclusion (e.g., socioeconomic status, gender, disability, and migration background) interact and compound disadvantage. A recent example comes from Slovakia: in September 2023, an amendment to the Education Act introduced the Catalogue of Support Measures (Katalóg podporných opatrení), which will be applied universally by 2026. This catalogue identifies pupils at risk of failure or early school leaving, including those repeating a grade, showing significant decline in subject performance, accumulating unjustified or justified absences, coming from families in material need or socially disadvantaged environments, returning from abroad, having different mother tongues, living with disabilities, or facing emotional and behavioural challenges, as well as those exposed to bullying or sudden critical family situations. Such a detailed classification illustrates the complexity and diversity of risk factors that reforms must address. Addressing these complex patterns requires moving beyond isolated interventions toward comprehensive strategies that integrate social, structural, and pedagogical dimensions. Within this approach, we also sought to draw attention to new dimensions of educational reform: ensuring students’ mental health and well-being, enhancing parental agency in school governance, adopting decentralised strategies that allow for local adaptation, and broadening the scope of educational analysis by emphasising the role of extracurricular activities. Finally, only the combination of diverse measures and the active involvement of both educational actors and stakeholders from the broader social environment can increase the likelihood of sustainable change. Such an approach would also help make reforms less dependent on shifting political constellations, which often result in unfinished initiatives, withdrawal under pressure from interest groups, or termination of funding. Moreover, it could counter another persistent weakness of reform agendas—top-down reforming, where interventions are designed at the central level without incorporating the voices of local communities, target groups, teachers, and other school-related actors.
While some reforms incorporate elements of both formative, preventive, and compensatory approaches, others are limited to one or two. This raises the question of whether, for instance, formative reforms that operate primarily in an expressive capacity can meaningfully advance egalitarian objectives, or whether they risk being perceived as largely symbolic. Educational reforms that are not accompanied by concrete measures may have limited practical impact and may therefore be vulnerable to accusations of tokenism. Similarly, formative reforms implemented in contexts characterised by substantial structural inequalities may face significant constraints. In societies marked by pronounced disparities across socioeconomic status, ethnicity, ability, or other dimensions, efforts to cultivate egalitarian values through education may lack credibility. When the values promoted within educational settings are starkly misaligned with the broader social and institutional environment, students may be less likely to internalise them. The effectiveness of formative reforms thus appears to be contingent on a minimum level of consistency between educational messaging and the surrounding social order. Finally, the political and social feasibility of compensatory reforms may depend in part on the success of expressive and formative initiatives. Compensatory measures typically entail material costs, at least in the short term, and require public support from those who bear these burdens. Where egalitarian values are weakly embedded or widely contested, individuals may be less willing to endorse redistributive policies, particularly if they perceive them conflicting with their immediate interests. In such contexts, compensatory reforms aimed at equalising educational opportunities may encounter substantial resistance, undermining their prospects for successful implementation.
This challenge is further intensified by the fact that education functions, at least in part, as a positional good; that is, its value depends not only on absolute attainment but also on relative standing. Beyond a certain threshold, additional educational attainment derives much of its value from its role in facilitating access to desirable employment rather than from intrinsic benefits alone. As Brian Barry observes, “in the job market, what matters is not how much education you have but how much you have in relation to others. If half the population have a degree, then a degree will become the minimum qualification for entry-level positions in many jobs that previously would have been filled by those who had completed secondary education but gone no further” (Barry, 2005, pp. 176–177). From a policy perspective, this positional dynamic has important distributive implications. If egalitarian educational reforms succeed in raising the attainment levels of previously disadvantaged groups, individuals from more advantaged backgrounds may experience a relative loss in their competitive position within the labour market. Such reforms may therefore entail perceived costs for advantaged groups, even when overall educational levels increase. In the absence of normative commitments that extend beyond narrow self-interest, it is difficult to identify incentives for these groups to support reforms that potentially diminish their relative advantages. This underscores the importance of a broadly shared egalitarian ethos in sustaining political support for redistributive educational policies.
Achieving a more egalitarian society requires educational reforms that taken in their entirety incorporate expressive, formative, and compensatory dimensions. When effectively designed and implemented, these three roles can be mutually reinforcing, suggesting that policymakers should address them in an integrated manner when developing future educational reforms. Limiting policy interventions to only one or two of these dimensions risks undermining their overall effectiveness.
5.4 Missing areas
Education reforms in Europe undertake various actions aimed at reducing educational inequalities. In many cases, they address issues related to socio-economic capital of the family, spatial inequalities, migrants’ background. At the same time, we observe that several topics remain unaddressed. This primarily concerns issues related to health, understood as a state of well-being.
Health is among the most pressing concerns in contemporary societies. From one point of view, the focus is on wellbeing, which is crucial for healthy individuals and communities; on the other, the mental health crisis among children and adolescents is alarming. Recent studies in Europe indicate a sharp increase in anxiety, depression, and stress-related disorders among young people, exacerbated by factors such as academic pressure, social media influence, and the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wellbeing in the context of education refers to a holistic state of physical, mental, emotional, and social health that enables students to thrive both academically and personally. It encompasses not only the absence of illness or distress but also the presence of positive conditions that support learning, development, and a sense of belonging (WHO, 2024). The OECD also emphasises that wellbeing in education is not just about individual happiness but is closely related to equity, inclusion, and life satisfaction, which are essential for long-term societal outcomes (OECD, 2019).
Despite the extensive scope of reforms across European education systems aimed at equity, inclusion, and access a significant gap in addressing student wellbeing and mental health as core components of educational equity is noticed. While some countries have begun to integrate these dimensions into broader strategies, they often remain peripheral, underdeveloped, or treated as secondary to structural and curricular reforms.
The concept of a “good educational life” encompasses more than access to schooling it includes the quality of the educational experience, emotional safety, and the capacity for personal development. Yet the report shows that wellbeing is rarely a central focus of reform. For example, while Ireland’s Education for Sustainable Development – ESD to 2030: 2014 explicitly mentions physical and mental wellbeing as part of its vision, such comprehensive approaches are the exception rather than the rule.
In most cases, wellbeing is addressed indirectly, through measures like free meals (Portugal’s PERA programme, England’s Pupil Premium, Romania’s Hot Meal) or homework assistance (Norway’s Leksehjelpsordningen), but these are framed as tools for reducing socio-economic disparities rather than as part of a holistic wellbeing strategy. The Swedish Collaboration for the Best School programme includes support for students at risk of academic failure, but again, mental health is not foregrounded.
Moreover, the integration of wellbeing into curricula is limited. Denmark’s curriculum reforms mention democratic formation and respect for diversity, which may contribute to emotional wellbeing, but do not explicitly address mental health or emotional literacy. On the other hand, another Danish reform from the beginning of our period seems pertinent here, namely the Educational Environment Act (Lov om elevers og studerendes undervisningsmiljø) of 2001. According to §1 of the Act, “[p]upils, students and other participants in public and private education are entitled to a good educational environment so that teaching can take place in a safe and healthy manner. The educational environment in schools and educational institutions […] must promote the participants’ opportunities for development and learning and therefore also includes the educational institution’s psychological and aesthetic environment.” In 2017, the Act was amended to include a requirement that all educational institutions at the primary and secondary level draw up an “anti-bullying strategy”, including a strategy against cyberbullying. These provisions, while not framed explicitly in terms of wellbeing or mental health, introduce concrete strategies that indirectly support emotional wellbeing by fostering safe, inclusive, and psychologically supportive learning environments.
Similarly, Norway’s Knowledge Promotion reform includes “public health and life skills” as interdisciplinary themes, yet the implementation and impact on student wellbeing. The Completion Reform in Norway acknowledges students with mental health challenges and school avoidance, proposing tailored courses and differentiated durations. However, this is a reactive measure, targeting students already at risk, rather than a preventive strategy embedded in everyday school day.
The expressive aims of educational reforms – such as those in Malta, Luxembourg, and Denmark – often emphasise values like equality and democracy. However, wellbeing is rarely articulated as a civic value or a foundational element of democratic education. This omission is significant, as emotional resilience, empathy, and mental health literacy are essential for active citizenship and social cohesion.
While the wellbeing context could be found indirectly in analysed reform mental health support is fragmented across different levels of education and rarely embedded in systemic reform and underprioritised. For instance, Greece’s KEDASY centres (formerly KESY) provide interdisciplinary support, including psychosocial services, but their integration into the broader educational framework is not well elaborated. In Denmark, vocational education reforms include provisions for psychological counselling (§66 of the Executive Order on Vocational Education and Training), yet such support is not extended uniformly across all educational levels.
Furthermore, mental health is absent from most early childhood education reforms. While countries like Hungary and Ireland have implemented programs to support disadvantaged children, these focus on cognitive and social development, with little attention to emotional wellbeing or trauma-informed care.
The Irish LGBTI+ National Youth Strategy (2018–2020) is a notable exception, explicitly aiming to improve mental and sexual health among youth and create inclusive environments.
European strategy was published for the first time (European Commission 2020). Although the absence of reforms does not exclude the possibility that the lack of identification of such reforms to some extent might reflect methodological limitations of this report, it is noteworthy that countries’ effort to include and mitigate any disadvantages experienced by this group of students have not been sufficiently registered. Although the three identified action plans do not necessarily exhaust the actual number of LGBTQIA+ initiatives in the European countries, the relative low degree of registration of such reforms might showcase a general tendency among European countries to give problems experienced by this group of people a low national policy priority.
Second, although European education reforms have made significant progress in addressing inequalities related to socio-economic status, migration background, and spatial disparities, several areas remain overlooked. Most notably, issues of health and wellbeing—both physical and mental—are rarely treated as central priorities, despite an alarming rise in anxiety, depression, and stress among children and adolescents. Where wellbeing is mentioned, it is often approached indirectly through measures such as free meals or homework assistance, rather than through comprehensive, preventive strategies embedded in everyday school life. Emotional literacy, resilience, and life skills are seldom integrated into curricula, and support for marginalised groups, particularly LGBTQIA+ students, remains limited, with only a handful of countries implementing targeted initiatives despite clear evidence of disproportionate risks of violence and exclusion. Third, for various reasons, it is not easy to conduct systematic evaluations of reforms or longitudinal studies that reveal the delayed effects of these changes.
- PISA: Programme for International Student Assessment,
PIRLS: Progress in International Reading Literacy Study,
TIMSS: Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study,
are large-scale, competency-based international assessments.
See STRIDE Working Paper on data and methodology “Key indicators of mapping inequalities in
educational achievements in Europe”, December 2025 ↩︎