Conference Program

The core of the sociology of education developed throughout the 20th century, initially focusing on the connection between educational phenomena and social class stratification. These foundational studies mainly demonstrated the role of families' socio-economic, socio-cultural, and socio-linguistic resources and how, along with institutional and pedagogical factors, these shape educational inequalities. While these theories were important, they lacked the tools to comprehend inequalities stemming from other social relationships and categorisations. Later, the sociology of education expanded its focus, with increased attention to gender disparities and, especially in Anglophone literature, to ethno-racial social dynamics. More recently, issues such as sexual orientation and disability have also been included.

Although some of these foundational analyses have broadened to incorporate studies on categorization and social relationships beyond their original scope, they often act as “separate lenses,” examining factors as additive rather than interconnected systems of oppression. To bridge this analytical gap, scholars have more frequently embraced the concept of intersectionality in recent years to develop a more nuanced understanding of school inequalities.

Intersectionality is a theoretical framework that stems from black feminist thought and activism, criticizing both monist and pluralist views on analyzing systems of oppression. It seeks to offer a comprehensive perspective to examine the system of domination at once, along with its fundamental and dependent aspects (Bilge, 2010). Thus, it functions as a tool for analysing power (Collins, 2000) aimed at promoting social justice (Cho et al., 2013).

Based on this definition, we conducted a critical literature review. We aim to critically analyze, synthesize, and reinterpret a body of literature using intersectionality to examine educational inequalities in order to develop new theoretical insights. Our review’s originality lies in addressing the main gaps in the existing literature by exploring a question that has not been thoroughly examined: how and for what purposes can we conduct a sociological analysis of educational inequalities grounded in intersectionality? And how can this advance the field of studies and debates regarding the limitations of foundational approaches to educational inequalities?

Through this critical literature review, we identified an ecosystem centred around four epistemological gestures that shape intersectional research in the sociology of education. These four epistemological gestures are: diagnosing inequality by assessing its scope, interpreting how it is experienced, criticizing the systems that produce it, and transforming educational practices and the system itself. These four orientations form an interconnected ecosystem that can help renew analyses of educational inequalities through their relationships: diagnosis, supported by interpretation, can shed light on lived experience; interpretation with a critical perspective maintains political implications; and critique, aided by transformation, offers tangible solutions.