Achieving social justice within and through higher education: the challenge for critical pedagogy

While the term critical pedagogy embraces a range of writers and literature, a common feature of all is a belief that education and society are intrinsically inter-related and that the fundamental purpose of education is to improve social justice. However there are perceptions that critical pedagogy has been more successful in critiquing educational and social practices than in achieving actual change. In this paper I explore two areas that critical pedagogy can address to move beyond critique: the importance of a movement formed by diverse elements, in which difference and disagreement are harnessed to help drive change; and the use of this diversity to direct change at a range of levels. My analysis draws specifically on literature that challenges managerialist assumptions about change as a simple, technical process, focusing instead on the complexities of the social world and the attendant complexities of achieving educational and social change.     

Conceptualising food research in higher education as a matter of social justice: philosophical,methodological and ethical considerations

Globally, food concerns in higher education have emerged as an issue of critical importance. Food acquisition struggles and high rates of food insecurity among students have been documented, yet food within higher education continues to be an under-researched area of study. This paper calls for advancing research that critically engages with food concerns in higher education. The argument is made that food concerns should be viewed as a social justice matter, and a case is made for conducting research on food concerns by adopting an alternative approach to research in this area – a transformative paradigm. The paper advances new insights for the philosophical, methodological and ethical dimensions to researching food in higher education as a matter of social justice. The argument is made that a transformative approach to research is conducive for examining the experiences of those who are marginalised within the context of higher education and confront food challenges.     

Alternative education and social justice: considering issues of affective and contributive justice

This article considers the ways in which three alternative education sites in Australia support socially just education for their students and how injustice is addressed within these schools. The article begins with recognition of the importance of Nancy Fraser’s work to understandings of social justice. It then goes on to argue that her framework is insufficient for understanding the particularly complex set of injustices that are faced by many highly marginalised young people who have rejected or been rejected by mainstream education systems. We argue here for the need to consider the importance of ‘affective’ and ‘contributive’ aspects of justice in schools. Using interview data from the alternative schools, we highlight issues of affective justice raised by students in relation to their educational journeys, as well as foregrounding teachers’ affective work in schools. We also consider curricular choices and pedagogical practices in respect of matters of contributive justice. Our contention is that the affective and contributive fields are central to the achievement of social justice for the young people attending these sites. Whilst mainstream schools are not the focus of this article, we suggest that the lessons here have salience for all forms of schooling.     

Towards social justice in education: contradictions and dilemmas

The article builds on prior arguments that research on issues of social justice in education has often lacked constructive engagement with education policy-making, and that this can be partly attributed to a lack of clarity about what a socially just education system might look like. Extending this analysis, this article argues that this lack of clarity is perpetuated by a series of contradictions and dilemmas underpinning ‘progressive’ debate in education, which have not been adequately confronted. At the heart are dilemmas about what constitutes a socially just negotiation of the binarised hierarchy of knowledge that characterises education in the UK, Australia and elsewhere. Three exemplar cases presented from contemporary education curriculum policy in England and Australia are used to illustrate these dilemmas. We then extend this argument to a series of other philosophical dilemmas which haunt education and create tensions or contradictions for those concerned with social justice. It is maintained that we need to confront these dilemmas in efforts to extend conceptual clarity in what it is we are seeking to achieve, which in turn can better equip us to provide the empirical and conceptual information necessary to effectively engage policy-making to remediate inequalities in education.     

Failures and possibilities of epistemic justice,with some implications for higher education

ABSTRACT

This papers draws on the compelling example of a political movement in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s to explore both how epistemic justice conditions of possibility and of failure play out in practice. It provides a springboard to understand how and why failures of epistemic justice matter tremendously for democratic and inclusive lives and how the historical example can point us in the direction of higher education as a space for Amartya Sen’s redressable injustices if underpinned by Miranda’s Fricker’s core capability of epistemic contribution being available pedagogically to all. The paper engages with ideas, practices and actions fostered by Black Consciousness against apartheid as both a hermeneutical and a testimonial injustice in South Africa, with both having a relational structure of giving and receiving, as Fricker argues and as Jose Medina elaborates by extending the structure to include the communicative and participatory. The paper then shows the importance of these conceptual frames to transformative higher education practices and how such practices might contribute to more epistemic justice in higher education.     

The social justice implications of privatisation in education governance frameworks: a relational account

This paper explores the social justice implications of two, ‘linked’, governance developments which have been instrumental in reshaping many education systems throughout the world: the ‘privatising’ and ‘globalising’ of education (Klees, Stromquist, & Samoff, 2012 Klees, S., Stromquist, N. and Samoff, J., eds. 2012. A critical review of the World Bank’s education strategy 2020, Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.  [Google Scholar]). We argue that such education governance innovations demand an explicit engagement with social justice theories, both in themselves, and as offering an opportunity to address issues of social justice that go beyond the re/distribution of education inputs and outputs, important though these are, and which take account of the political and accountability issues raised by globalising of education governance activity. To do this we draw upon Iris Marion Young’s concept of ‘the basic structure’ and her ‘social connection model’ of responsibility (Young, 2006 Young, I. M. 2006. Taking the basic structure seriously. Perspectives in Politics, 4: 91–97. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]a,b) to develop a relational account of justice in education governance frameworks.     

高等教育大众化对性别公平的效应研究

本文通过中国高等教育大众化进程中高等教育入学机会性别公平的实证研究,得出如下结论:高等教育大众化促进了性别公平.在总量上男女两性高等教育入学机会已经达到公平.本科层次的两性入学机会差异在逐步缩小,专科层次已达到公平.在研究生层次上男女性入学机会的非公平仍然存在,但在高等教育大众化进程中呈倒U字形曲线,在高等教育大众化初期男女性机会差异不断扩大,随着高等教育大众化的深入又转向逐渐缩小的趋势.在学科层次方面,人文经管类女性高等教育入学机会远远超过男性,理工类男女两性高等教育不公平仍然比较突出,所以发展文科有利于促进高等教育机会的性别公平.     

Exploring the heterogeneity of class in higher education: social and cultural differentiation in Danish university programmes

This paper examines the relationship between social background, choice of university programme and academic culture among Danish university students. Statistically and sociologically, university students are often treated as a homogeneous group, but the ever-increasing number of students in higher education demands a closer examination of the hidden heterogeneity in the students’ social origin and educational strategies. Using a mixed-method approach (register data and ethnographic observations and interviews) the paper focuses on the students’ class origins and on different cultural practices in three Danish university programmes. It is shown that the Danish university field is characterized by a significant variation in social selectivity from programme to programme, and it is argued that these different social profiles correspond with distinctively different cultural practices in the programmes. Correspondingly, the students have distinctively different strategies towards education and future work life.     

构建和谐社会必须实现社会公正

社会公正体现在司法公正、政策公正、制度公正、道德公正等各个方面：构建社会主义和谐社会必须实现社会公正；社会公正必须通过更新观念、坚持公平、发展民主、加强法制等多种途径来实现。     

社会公正与大学角色

Social justice is not only a vital ethical principle of the human society but also the all-important value of the entire social system. As a public sphere, the university undertakes the purpose to achieve public interest. It plays a significant role in reflecting, defending, and fostering social justice. Nurturing people with social justice awareness is a key mission of the university; it communicates and advocates the ideas of social justice, which helps to foster social justice consciousness of the public; and, for its own part, it must strive to embody and defend procedural justice. __________ Translated from Gaodeng Jiaoyu Yanjiu 高等教育研究 (Journal of Higher Education), 2007, 28(1): 13–19, revised by Zha Qiang, Faculty of Education, York University     

Social justice intents in policy: an analysis of capability for and through education

Primarily developed as an alternative to narrow measures of well-being such as utility and resources, Amartya Sen’s capability approach places strong emphasis on people’s substantive opportunities. As a broad normative framework, the capability approach has become a valuable tool for understanding and evaluating social arrangements (e.g. education policies and development programmes) in terms of individuals’ effective freedoms to achieve valuable beings and doings. This paper explores the recent emergence of ‘capability’ in Australian education policy, specifically in the Australia in the Asian Century White Paper. We explore capability as a framing device and reveal how its various meanings are at odds with the scholarly literature, specifically Sen’s conception of capability and its implications for social justice in and through education. The analysis shows that the social justice intent of a capability approach appears to be overtaken in the White Paper by an emphasis on outcomes, performance and functionings that seek to serve the nation’s economic interests more than the interests of students, especially the disadvantaged.     

Empathy,teaching dispositions,social justice and teacher education

ABSTRACT

Considerable attention over the past several years has been given to empathy as a desirable teacher disposition. Situating empathy in a slice of the research on dispositions, the author identifies and explores several problems surrounding empathy related to expectations, definitions, measurement, inferential accuracy, and the realization of social justice. An argument is made for listening to learn as an alternative to empathy as a teaching disposition and virtue.     

中国近代高等教育的社会信任习惯及其形成

我国近代高等教育的社会信任由科举信任、官本位型信任和职业获得型信任混合构成,并成为过去乃至现在人们信任和认同高等教育的习惯。这一习惯影响着人们对高等教育的认知图式和交往方式。     

浅析高等教育与社会分层之间的互动关系

高等教育与社会分层之间具有非常明显的互动关系。这种互动关系主要体现在社会分层对高等教育的影响以及高等教育对社会分层的影响两个层面。近年来,对于这种互动关系的研究多侧重于社会分层对高等教育入学机会以及专业选择等方面的影响,而就社会分层对高校毕业生职业的选择、就业机会是否均等、就业率等方面的影响的研究则显得较为薄弱,仍需进一步研究。     

Transfer students in institutions of higher education

The primary purpose of this study is to describe the extent of college transfers over two years since initial matriculation and to examine differences in background characteristics between transfers and nontransfers (i.e., persisters, withdrawals, and graduates). Data involved a national probability sample of the 1972 entering class. Major findings include the following: 25% of the 2-year college students transferred to a 4-year institution, and 16% of 4-year college students moved to another 4-year institution. This later group of students tended to hold higher socioeconomic status and college grades but lower ability test scores than persisters. Implications of the findings are also discussed.     

我国高职教育生态的多元结构及发展策略

我国高职教育生态的多元结构由多类型、多层级、多区域、多特色的四维关系组成。高职教育生态的多样化,是高职教育生态系统与环境互适互融并在过程中不断进化的重要条件。优化高职教育的多元结构,应通过生态位策略、生态承载力扩张、教育集群组建和生态评价体系调整等进行。     

社会科学方法论与高等教育研究

在自然科学、社会科学与人文科学这种知识分类框架下,教育学的学科地位非常尴尬。从早期的“(自然)科学化”、到后来的“人文化”,再到晚近的“社会科学化”,教育学的学科性质始终变动不居。作为教育学的分支学科,高等教育研究面临同样的困境。本文认为高等教育研究若要从根本上提升自身的学术地位,成为真正意义上独立的学术性学科,积极引入社会科学方法论是极其关键的一步。     

The emerging fourth tier in K-12 education finance in British Columbia,Canada: increasing privatisation and implications for social justice

This paper examines increasing privatisation of education in the province of British Columbia, Canada. Conceptually, the paper is informed by theories of privatisation and social justice; and methodologically, it uses policy analysis to examine documents and financial records obtained from government departments. The paper critically analyses education policy that has enabled the emergence of private sources of revenue (tuition fees and for-profit revenue) and the establishment of school and programme choice. Analysis of levels of international student tuition generated by school districts in the province reveals differential capacity to produce such revenue. The authors argue that this differential capacity is leading to the development of a fourth tier within a pre-existing three-tier K-12 education system in British Columbia. The article concludes with a discussion of implications related to social justice in education.     

社会资本因素对个体高等教育需求的影响

对中国大陆三省一市10909名高中生和香港3157名高中生的调查研究发现,学生参与社团活动、家庭教育期望,无论是对中国大陆学生还是香港学生的高等教育需求都具有显著影响。家庭中兄弟姐妹的数量、家庭成员辅导学生功课、父母与子女沟通频率等因素,对中国大陆学生的高等教育需求具有显著影响;家庭社会网络广泛度、师生沟通频率,则对香港学生的高等教育需求具有显著影响。研究还发现,一些常被认为影响个体高等教育需求的因素,如家庭社会网络资源、父母与学校的联系等,对学生的高等教育需求并无显著影响。     

Enlarging the social justice agenda in education: an analysis of rural teachers' narratives beyond the distributive dimension

The sustained disadvantages suffered by rural schools place the concept of social justice at the centre of any discussion of rural education. However, too often a one-size-fits-all model is adopted that equates it with distribution of resources. Drawing on Iris Marion Young's work, this paper instead demonstrates the necessity of adopting a plural framework of social justice that includes issues of recognition and participation within the current neoliberal environment. The author draws on findings from a qualitative study with teachers in two rural schools in Victoria, Australia. While the teachers acknowledged the importance of a better distribution of resources, just as significant was their concern for issues of power, respect and participation in their work. The author argues that the distributive dimension offers a useful but limited approach and that a plural framework of social justice better informs teachers' experiences, and contributes to their understanding of the contexts in which they work.