Close the Metacognitive Equity Gap: Teach All Students How to Learn

In his seminal book, Toward Excellence with Equity: An Emerging Vision for Closing the Achievement Gap, Ferguson (2008) persuasively argued that the achievement gap between students from different racial groups is not the result of a difference in ability, attitudes or work ethic between groups, but rather a difference in the academic skills acquired. Often, we in the academic community use the term educational equity when referring to closing the achievement gap between different groups of students, such as majority versus minoritized, lower socioeconomic versus higher socioeconomic, or students from well-resourced versus under-resourced schools (Harris & Herrington, 2006). I have recently begun using a parallel term, metacognitive equity, to describe closing the gap between students who use metacognition (effective thinking and learning strategies) and those who do not. I posit that it is the gap in metacognitive strategies that contributes most to the persistent achievement gap and that all students must be taught how to learn.