Searching for Equity in the System Reforms Literature

Since the 1980s, system reforms have generated enthusiasm for their promise to shift existing school systems to serve children more equitably. While educational equity is a central goal of system reforms, we know little about how researchers conceptualize equity and how they examine the relationships between system reforms and equity. Drawing on prevalent conceptions of educational equity and critical policy analysis as analytic frameworks, we conducted a systematic literature review of system reforms, including 269 manuscripts in this analysis. We find that equity has not been a main focus of literature on system reforms. Of the literature that did study equity, much of it conceptualized equity as access and outcomes, with a smaller subset conceptualizing equity as social justice. Further, researchers primarily utilized two approaches for examining the relationships between system reforms and equity: highlighting the differences between policy rhetoric and practiced reality and examining the impacts that system reforms have on social stratification. We conclude with recommendations for future system reforms studies.