Equal opportunities and educational inclusion in Spain

There is a growing international consensus that considers equity as a necessary, though not sufficient, characteristic of the quality of education systems. PISA 2015 has established two fundamental pillars of equity: equal opportunities and educational inclusion. Regarding equal opportunities, the OECD has chosen to distinguish the influences on students from the circumstances, on the one hand, and the effort, on the other. Of the first the student would not be responsible; of the second if it would be, by virtue of their individual choices. Regarding educational inclusion, it has established a distinction between academic inclusion and social inclusion. The present work is based on that same conceptual framework, but it enriches the indicators of equality of opportunities through indexes of processes that would improve the results of the students operating on their circumstances from the school environment. From the samples of Spain and its seventeen autonomous communities in PISA 2015, this work makes the measurement of a broad set of indicators and analyzes the relationships between them. From this broad set of empirical results, it draws relevant consequences for the improvement of the education system in Spain and its autonomous communities in terms of equity.