Objective
Educational choices shape futures, influence life chances, and are among the most significant factors in social mobility. Despite political and academic consensus on avoiding early selection, inequalities in educational opportunities are on the rise, even in systems that aim for equity or discourage parental choice. Paradoxically, the belief that today’s educational opportunities are meritocratically earned is growing, reducing the demand for inclusive education.
EDUMERIT aims to explain the policy feedback of school choice implementation by revealing its contextually embedded effects on parental experiences and fairness beliefs. It shows how varying exposure to educational selectivity and political-social constraints, shaped by stakeholders' discretion and discourses, result in discrepancies between real and perceived outcomes, as well as related fairness judgements.
It breaks through the state of the art in studying policy feedback effects in shifting the focus from policy design to policy implementation, and from broader popular attitudes to parental fairness reasoning in school choice. It offers a bold new conceptualization to define under which conditions feedback effects in education result in the rising meritocracy beliefs at the expense of re-distributional demand. It sets out a comparative nested empirical design to reveal parental school choice experiences and related fairness reasoning by combining cross-European evidence with survey experiments, qualitative interpretive interviews and social media analysis in Estonia, Poland, and Sweden.
EDUMERIT innovates by addressing endogeneity in education policy feedback effects and advancing a relational approach to fairness reasoning. It develops the role of ‘forward-looking’ social mobility in the broader fairness debate, elucidating inequalities that matter. It strengthens the policy and politics of inclusive education by enhancing the compatibility between meritocracy and solidarity of welfare policies.
Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
10120 Tallinn
Estonia
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.