For the first time, researchers, policymakers and practitioners across the world will have access to a comprehensive mapping of research evidence and policy strategies about education and poverty in affluent countries. Although there is widespread agreement that poverty and poor educational outcomes are related, there are competing explanations as to why that should be the case. This is a major problem for practitioners, policy makers and researchers who are looking for pointers to action, or straightforward ways of understanding an issue that troubles education systems across the world. This unique book brings scholarship and analysis from some of the most influential researchers and writers on education and poverty within one text. The authors provide a synthesising framework that will help researchers and policy makers to examine future educational policy in a holistic and comprehensive fashion.

Education and Poverty in Affluent Countries is...a brilliant and ground-breaking study of great potential value for politicians, policy-makers, researchers and community activists. It inaugurates a new paradigm for facing problems in the field and it encourages all those working in the field to be sustained by 'complex hope' for the possibility of change."--Journal of Educational Policy

"What the authors achieve in this volume is no small feat given the magnitude of the topic they address and the valuable organising synthesis given to their discussion in education and poverty."--British Journal of Educational Studies

"How to sort through the competing commitments and explanations, how to judge the success of policies and practices, and how we maintain a consistently critical ethical and political stance—all of this needs to be taken very seriously. Education and Poverty in Affluent Countries provides a platform from which we can go further in dealing more reflectively with such issues"—Education Review

Carlo Raffo is a Reader in Education at the University of Manchester. Alan Dyson is Professor of Education in the University of Manchester. Helen Gunter is Professor of Educational Policy, Leadership and Management in the School of Education at the University of Manchester. Dave Hall is a Senior Lecturer in Education at the School of Education, University of Manchester. Lisa Jones is a Research Assistant at the University of Manchester and is currently studying for her Ph.D. Afroditi Kalambouka is a Research Associate at the University of Manchester.