D.09. Reversing Educational Inequalities: Successful Interventions for Democratic Learning

This panel examines how educational research can contribute to strengthening democracy by reducing structural inequalities through evidence-based interventions that have been shown to be successful in diverse contexts across the world (Ruiz-Eugenio et al., 2023). Building on results from the Horizon Europe project REVERS-ED, the session explores how democratic educational communities—where students, families, and teachers participate through an egalitarian dialogue—foster both academic equity and civic empowerment. Through systematic literature reviews, large-scale cohort studies, longitudinal mixed-methods designs, and students’ longitudinal successful trajectory analyses across different European countries, the contributions illuminate how inequalities emerge along socioeconomic, linguistic, and migratory lines, and how they can be reversed through successful interventions. These interventions, rooted in interaction, solidarity, and co-creation, have demonstrated measurable improvements in learning outcomes, coexistence, and students’ civic agency (Soler, 2015).

The panel argues that democratic schooling (Apple & Beane, 2007) is not only a normative aspiration but an empirically supported pathway to social justice. By integrating macro-level evidence with the lived experiences of students from vulnerable communities who overcame disadvantages, the session highlights how participation, dialogic learning, inclusion, and family engagement can transform educational systems and enable historically marginalized students to become active contributors to democratic life. The findings provide concrete, scalable strategies for policymakers and practitioners seeking to build more inclusive and democratic schools in Europe and beyond.