Educational success and poverty: searching for paths to social inclusion

Abstract

The link between child poverty and school failure poses a very important challenge for the Spanish and Catalan Educational System. The chronification of poverty and the worrying results in early school dropout challenges the effectiveness of public policies and the real capacity of the Educational System to confront it. Both, the evolution of the inclusion concept and the strategies that aim to improve educational equity consider the situations of educational needs linked to risk of social exclusion. However, the complexity of the phenomenon that arises forces us to broaden the perspective of public policies and social and educational action from school and beyond school. As a result of this approach that aims to address the multidimensionality of poverty and educational success, which is an emerging field, the research analyzes from a qualitative approach a sample of 30 programs in 9 Autonomous Communities that, from different points of view and emphases, aim to improve educational success and social inclusion. The results show 2 main types of programs: some focused on strengthening cultural capital with special emphasis on different modalities of educational reinforcement; and others focused on the development of social capital, with activities of greater cultural and relational content and, sometimes, with community support. The majority of activities are promoted by social entities, focused on meeting needs, and their forelegs community or transversal in nature than would be advisable from criteria of sustainability and social transformation.