The Term Equity in Education: A Literature Review with Scientific Mapping in Web of Science

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Abstract

The term “equity” (EQUI) is a complex concept to be defined, because it depends on many factors, mainly political ideals. The objective of this research is to determine the evolution and development of the term equity in education by the scientific community. The main objective is to identify the scientific production and performance of the term equity in the field of education. The research method developed is based on bibliometrics, specifically on the technique of scientific mapping, and a process of quantification, analysis, evaluation and estimation of scientific documents was developed. The results indicate there is no established line of research or strong connections between the themes. This shows the existing variety of research on the term equity. Thus, the trend in research on the term equity is focused on the early periods of study on the students’ diversity in order to evolve to more concrete and specific aspects of equity, such as gender and race. It is concluded that the theoretical framework of reference shows how equity should be incorporated into the education system under the parameters of equal opportunities, of equality in access to higher education, regardless of gender or socio-cultural background.

Keywords: scientific production, bibliometric analysis, scientific mapping, equity, education, Web of Science

1. Introduction

The first reference made to the term “equity” was related to the need established by many countries, in 1990, to bring together two terms—equity and quality—in the supply of education in each nation. Many more countries have since joined this endeavor, beginning in 2004. The conceptualization of the term is twofold: on the one hand, those normative references that confirm the fact that the principles of quality and equity are inseparable. This conceptualization of equity is based on two principles: quality education for all citizens, seeking to develop to the maximum the individual, social, intellectual, cultural, and emotional capacities, always within a framework of effective equality of opportunity; and the shared effort of the entire education community in caring for the diversity of students. On the other hand, the term equity is associated with social well-being, based on the principle of personalized and universal education. In this case, equity and quality are considered to be two sides of the same coin, as well as making reference to the fact that if there is laziness and mediocrity, there will be no equity. The researchers themselves present lines of research focused on aspects directly related to equity, such as attention to diversity. This study seeks to analyze how the term equity is treated, in the area of education, by the scientific community. In doing so, it seeks to offer a more concrete and specific perspective, both to the educational community and to the scientific community, for understanding the approaches to and scope of the term equity.

Justification and Objectives

It is important to note that the term equity is different from equality. More precisely, along this heading we will present the basic principles and characteristics of each one of the educational conceptions that can be assumed [1,2]. On the one hand, equality refers to having the same resources and opportunities, that is to say, to satisfy the needs of each individual. This principle is a long-term objective of a just society where children, regardless of ethnic origin, socio-economic class, or gender, should have access to the same resources and opportunities. In addition to these egalitarian aspects, equality must be made effective in the treatment and non-discrimination of people with disabilities, also promoting non-sexist and non-stereotypical attitudes. It will be clear that we have achieved this goal when schooling and economic success and opportunity are equal for all groups of children.

On the other hand, by equity we mean a system where common goods are redistributed to create systems and schools that share a greater likelihood of being more equal [1]. This educational approach manifests itself in an equitable system where additional resources are provided so that students have the opportunity to excel academically and socially. From this vision, equity requires an unequal distribution of resources in the hope that sustained equity will temporarily favor and promote more equal educational opportunities for students, in which all reach the maximum possible development of their individual and social, intellectual, cultural and emotional capacities. Students should receive a quality education adapted to their needs, thus making equity and quality the two sides of the same coin [3]. This premise would imply that differences between people would not be a risk factor for discrimination, exclusion, or social, labor or educational disadvantage, but rather an opportunity to improve them [4] and to meet their needs. These approaches can promote egalitarian thinking on student performance and achievement when inequality in this sense is not necessarily unfair, as differences in student outcomes may be due to differences in students’ efforts, motivations, interests, talents, or even luck [2].

Currently, education systems have equity as one of their guiding principles [4,5,6]. This fact manifests itself in different ways according to the ideologies underlying the educational policies that are implemented [7]. From a neoliberal point of view, equity can be understood as the right to receive training according to one’s possibilities, which allows one to choose a professional path and enter the world of work [8]. In this way, education is utilitarian and becomes a right that has as its main objective the formation of future citizens as a workforce [6]. Thus, the education system is an accomplice to the perpetuation of social inequalities without reducing the initial disadvantages. On the other hand, equity is conceived in the education system as part of social justice in which each person, by virtue of being a person, receives what he or she needs from the common goods to compensate for the initial inequalities and, thus, annul the biases related to personal, social, or cultural factors [9].

Equity in education should not only be seen as compensation or readjustment of common goods in order to alleviate initial limitations, but should also go beyond this by seeking to ensure that this equity is manifested in such important aspects as equal opportunities in access to studies regardless of gender [10,11], social origin [12,13], or ethnic origin [12,13,14]. It also seeks to ensure that this equity is reflected in academic results and quality [15], which will allow students to access higher education and thus break the inequality gap [16].

There are various measures to promote equity in education. Examples are educational resources, financial aid for study, and measures to address diversity. [4]. There are also other measures to promote equity. One such measure is the cultural and organizational organization of educational centers [17,18,19,20,21]. Schools must promote routines and practices that encourage educational leadership. This leadership should favor the entire educational community, focusing mainly on teachers, parents, and students [17]. In this sense, educational leadership [6,13] appears as a dynamic element of educational practices based on equity and social justice. In addition, collective work [5] emerges as a central principle to work on. It favors transforming and liberating change in teaching, learning, schooling, education, and society.

For this equity to be effective in schools, teachers must be involved and made aware of the need to implement strategies and actions [22] that promote equity [23] and, in turn, mobilize the different agents in the community where the school is located [20] to actively participate in the fight against inequalities [24]. In this sense, recent research [25] has revealed how schools working in the most disadvantaged contexts become the most powerful means of promoting improvements through school partnerships.

The importance of working for a more equitable education system is reflected in the reports on this subject that are being produced in different countries [2] and the proposal that the United Nations launched through the Agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development [26] with its 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Objective 4, dedicated to quality education, expressly mentions the need to guarantee inclusive, equitable, and quality education that produces relevant and effective learning outcomes. It is clear from these initiatives that, in order for these changes to be effective in society and, therefore, in the education system, there must be effective and sustainable involvement of all social actors, that is, the public and private sectors, microenterprises, and cooperatives, as well as multinationals, civil society organizations, and philanthropic organizations [26]. Only through the personal involvement of each citizen and the collaboration of other organizational structures can we work to provide safe, non-violent, inclusive, and effective learning environments for all, and thus achieve effective equity in education.

To develop this research, the term “equity” was analyzed in articles in the Web of Science (WoS) database. This database is owned by Clarivate Analytics. It contains a collection of databases of bibliographic references and citations to periodicals that collect information from 1900 to the present. The WOS is composed of the Core Collection which covers the Science, Social Science, and Arts and Humanities indexes, as well as the Proceedings of both Science and Social Science and Humanities along with tools for analysis and evaluation, such as the Journal Citation Report and Essential Science Indicators. Additionally, it comprises databases that complement it and are included in the license for Spain: Medline, Scielo, and Korean Citation Index. Because of the high relevance of this database, the authors selected it to conduct the present study. The research has a scientific mapping, considering some bibliometric indicators and the analysis of the structure and dynamism of terms. For this purpose, the analytical structure of previous studies taken from the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) [27,28,29] has been assumed. This provides a model already accepted by the scientific community.

This study, for the Special Issue “Transculturality, Education and Health in the Digital Age and Times of Uncertainty”, aims to analyze the term equity in the scientific field. This term is of utmost importance. If it is not well established at the educational level, it can generate situations of social exclusion, and therefore, generate public health problems. This is a reality, given that public health is not an isolated element or disconnected from social realities.

The aim of this research is to show the evolution of the term equity in the publications of the WoS main collection. There are several reasons for this, one being the gap between the scientific literature on the state of the art. Moreover, there is no study analyzed with this bibliometric technique of documentary analysis. This study profile aims to identify the main lines of research on the term equity. In this sense, this research explores a specific area of knowledge to offer the scientific community new discoveries about the delimited construct. This implies, among other things, a great evolution of science and the satisfaction of the knowledge needs of researchers in this field. Therefore, with this study we try to identify the specific and concrete profile of the term equity in the educational field.

To do so, it is necessary to keep in mind a series of specific objectives: (a) to know the performance of scientific production on equity in the field of education; (b) to analyze the scientific evolution of equity in the field of education; (c) to detect the most incidental questions on equity in the field of education; and (d) to identify the most influential authors on equity in the scientific literature of the field of education.

2. Materials and Method

2.1. Research Design

The research methodology to achieve the formulated objectives was bibliometrics, which can be understood as the branch of scientometrics that analyzes scientific publications. The methodological branch assumed is based on the potentialities of scientometrics, which can be defined as the statistical and sociometric analysis of the scientific literature through the use of mathematical models, in questions related to the processes of searching, recording, analyzing, and predicting the academic literature [30]. This research was developed on the basis of the guidance of experts in this method of study [31].

More specifically, this research was based on an analysis of co-words [32] and of various bibliometric indicators and indexes (h, g, hg, q2) [33]. These data allowed attainment of a set of maps with nodes that will show the performance and the location of sub-domains of the constructs connected to “equity” (EQUI). In addition, the graphic preparation will facilitate the development of the themes on EQUI in the database initially established [34].

2.2. Procedure

This investigation followed several processes: (1) choice of the database to be analyzed (WoS); (2) determination of the key words to be considered (“equity”); (3) elaboration of the search equation (“equity” TITLE in the categories of “Education Educational Research”, “Education Scientific Disciplines”, “Psychology Educational”, and “Education Special”); and (4) selection of the search process by bringing together the TOPIC process to report documents that included the concept to be analyzed in metadata comprising the title, abstract, and key words. This action allowed access to a first data report of 2656 publications. Thus, the concept of equity was first found in the scientific literature in 1948. In this sense, this research covered the analysis of a literary volume of 71 years (until 2019 inclusive). Publications relating to 2020 (n = 34) were eliminated because the calendar year was not completed. In addition, repeated or improperly indexed documents were deleted (n = 124). This resulted in a final unit of analysis of 2498 documents. These actions are reflected in the following flow chart, taking into consideration the protocols of the PRISMA-P matrix ( Figure 1 ).