A fair go in education

This book is directly concerned with issues of equity for students who are from low socio-economic backgrounds, such as those highlighted in the West Wing scenario. It details a research project carried out in Australia among teachers of students from such backgrounds. It presents teachers who are highly effective in engaging students from low socio-economic communities with their education and it centres that effectiveness in their pedagogies. The book presents the teachers, the contexts in which they teach and, above all, their classroom practices. It argues that these teachers make a difference to their students’ engagement with education because of these practices. However, we do not want to present a naïve view of the world in which educational success can somehow be removed from the socio-economic circumstances in which students find themselves. Therefore, in this chapter, before outlining the case for the book, its assumptions, and the research on which it is based, we want to pick up on some of the issues raised by the West Wing scenario and contextualize the work within larger international issues of the relationship between socio-economic status (SES) and educational success.