DDS – Die Deutsche Schule: Issue Addressing Educational Inequality in School Development Research

This paper addresses the question of how educational inequality has been conceptualized as an object of school development research (SDR) and focuses on the theoretical foundationsof its problem/solution constructions. Starting from a systematization of explanatory schemes for the genesis of educational inequality – the “groupist”, the “phylogenetic”,and the “operational” schemes – the adaptation of these schemes in SDR is critically discussed. Because “groupist-phylogenetic” explanations emphasize causes of educational inequality that are external to schools and distal from internal school operations, SDR on educational inequality faces a practical mismatch of problem construction and solution design. Inequality-producing school factors that are proximal to school development measures (organizational and grouping practices) are paradoxically not, or rarely, systematically made the starting point of SDR analyses and programs.

Keywords
education, inequality, school development, research, school, effectiveness, theory of society, sociology of science