by no means unimportant, is fundamentally a meritocratic
educational strategy - equality for all to deploy ‘ability +effort’
(Young, 1958) in pursuit of outcomes differentatiated by the quality
and quantity of ‘ability + effort’, for the purpose of post-education
occupational differentiation. In other words, equality of opportunity
is only comprehensible in an unequal society where the emphasis
is on a fairer distribution of inequalities, and not on a more
egalitarian redistribution of opportunities.
In the current global political and economic context of ‘markets +
democracy’ (Giddens, 1998, 2000, 2001) or ‘turbo-capitalism’
(Hutton and Giddens, 2000; Luttwack, 1998; Gamarnikow and
Green, forthcoming) equality of opportunity is invoked as the only
realistic option. Equality, by contrast, is viewed through a neo-
liberal lens and constructed as inimical to liberty and the
requirement of the ‘free market’ for incentives. Equality of
opportunity is thus associated with (increasing) social inequalities,
an uncomfortable and rather contradictory resolution of the
universality of human rights in the context of education.
National and international education policy identifies education as
the key site for the production of equality of opportunity. In other
words, the universality of the right to education is embedded in
educational systems which, at best, equalise chances to become
unequal. The abstract universal equality of human rights thus
appears to operate through educational systems whose human
rights aim is to produce (a fairer system) of inequalities. In other
words, education as a universal human right also operates as a
selective filter for other non-educational social hierarchies,
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