Teacher quality factors associated with equity in education: teacher development and teaching strategies

Social inequalities and its impact on students' academic achievement highlight the need to determine which educational factors need to be tackled to achieve a progressively more equitable society with greater Social Justice. Based on the results of PISA 2018 in Spain, two indicators of equity were obtained: as equality of results and as equality of opportunities. Contextual factors, teacher training and teaching strategies were identified as predictor variables. These indicators were related to the predictor variables to predict protective and risk factors for educational equity. The results indicate that, in addition to the key influence of contextual characteristics, teacher factors such as their training in professional guidance and counselling, or their support during the teaching-learning process, predict lower educational inequity as equality of outcomes. Similarly, teaching experience, teacher training in classroom management, or a greater presence of discriminatory teaching attitudes perceived by the student are factors that predict less educational inequity as equality of opportunities. Therefore, teacher training and the strategies implemented in the classroom by teachers are factors that can modulate educational equity.