In this chapter we deal with pedagogical aspects of the education of pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds. Our objective here is to analyse how pedagogical innovations have been used to improve the education of pupils from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, in schools and in educational measures described elsewhere in this book.

There are two important ways in which the education of pupils from socially excluded families may be improved. First, there may be an increase in the quality of education by, for example, extending the school day, reducing pupil–teacher ratios, employing classroom assistants to help teachers, or bringing other new professions into the educational scene. Second, improvement in the quality of education may be achieved through modification of lesson content and teaching methods. Qualitative improvements are the main focus of this chapter, in particular the underlying beliefs about the nature of education and how children learn.

Social expectations, social inequality and educational compensation

Compensatory policies and the pedagogy of diversity

School failure is dealt with in different ways depending on the type of school and its teaching methods. In the case of elite schools, which include some private schools receiving a state subsidy, pupils who have fallen behind may be sent to special schools or to other less prestigious institutions. The latter (often public schools, sometimes also subsidised private schools ‘with a working-class vocation’) apply traditional pedagogical methods in a segregated context. The pupils often remain deprived of the learning support that would help them overcome their supposed ‘incapacity’. It is widely recognised that most underachieving pupils are from socially disadvantaged backgrounds.

During the past 20 years two strategies have been developed to counteract pupil failure, the pedagogy of compensation and the pedagogy of diversity (also referred to in different European countries as differentiated pedagogy, adapted pedagogy or individualised pedagogy). Compensatory education programmes have been based on the assumption that some children suffer from an educational deficit, which has to be compensated for. Therefore, special programmes are devised to give them the knowledge which, the school assumes, they should have already acquired. The teaching process is restarted at the level where the pupil’s development halted.