Key Issues in Education and Social Justice

Emma Smith

• Publisher: SAGE Publications Ltd
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781526402721, 9781526402714
• eBook ISBN: 9781526451903
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

'This highly accessible book weaves together discussion of recent research findings, policy developments and theoretical perspectives. It provides a thought-provoking and at times contentious introduction that will challenge students and teachers to look beyond the easy and glib rhetoric, helping them understand the complexities of educating for a more equal world.?

Shereen Benjamin, Senior Lecturer in Primary Education, University of Edinburgh 

This book is an introduction to issues of inequality and social justice, how they relate to education systems and how education can be a force for positive societal change. Drawing upon research, policy and contemporary thinking in the field, this second edition examines educational inequalities that exist today, what lies behind them and what effects they have across society.

New to this edition:

• Wider coverage on social inequalities in relation to income and wealth
• New chapters on: childhood inequalities, international issues in education and social justice, and education inequalities in the USA
• A broader focus on how young people experience social justice that includes the experiences of young offenders.

This is essential reading for students on undergraduate education studies courses, and related degree programmes that explore the relationship between education and society.

1 An Introduction to Education and Social Justice

Education is the greatest liberator mankind has ever known and the greatest force for social progress.

Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, October 2007

The public understands the primary importance of education as the foundation for a satisfying life, an enlightened and civil society, a strong economy, and a secure Nation.

NCEE 1983

The role of education in promoting equality and social justice is a major preoccupation of the politicians who play a central role in deciding what is taught in our schools, where it is taught, to whom and by whom. From James Callaghan’s speech at Ruskin College, Oxford in 1976 to the current government’s commitment to education as the engine of social mobility and economic growth, the purpose of schooling has become increasingly linked to politicians’ views of what constitutes a fair and just society. This chapter introduces some of these politicised views of social justice and considers how they inform our understanding of what a fair and equitable school system might look like. It also examines what we mean by the term ‘social justice’ and focuses on three basic principles of justice: fairness as defined by treating individuals according to merit, by treating them according to need and by treating everyone equally.

The Politics of Social Justice

Over the last 40 or so years, different political ideologies have given rise to different notions of how the state should promote social justice through education. The policies that schools experience today, such as school choice, high-stakes testing and school accountability, have been the result of different political views on how best to achieve a world-class education system. Views about the role that education can play in reducing social inequality have been particularly prominent among policymakers from both the political Left and Right:

Without good education there can be no social justice. (David Cameron 2007)

It is education which provides the rungs on the ladder of social mobility. (Gordon Brown 2010)

Education is the high road out of poverty. (John Major 2015)

As the above quotations illustrate, the role of education in reducing poverty and inequality and promoting social mobility is a favourite topic among politicians seeking to share their vision for a fair and just society. However, while politicians from various parties may agree that education has a key role in promoting social justice, they differ in their views on the best way to achieve it. Here we examine these different political ideologies by focusing on extracts from the speeches of recent and current British political figures. To begin, let us consider this from the former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown:

… fairness can be advanced by but cannot, in the end, be guaranteed by charities, however benevolent, by markets, however dynamic, or by individuals, however well meaning, but guaranteed only by enabling government. (Brown 2005)

Gordon Brown’s view is that while charities, individual effort and markets can work to make society become fairer, the main responsibility lies with the government. His argument that ‘only the State can guarantee fairness’ sits in contrast to that of another former, this time Conservative, Prime Minster, David Cameron. Cameron’s view was of a ‘Big Society’ where power and control are redistributed from the state to individuals and local communities – in other words, a movement ‘from state action to social action’ (Cameron 2009). In essence, this was the reverse of Gordon Brown’s view. For current and recent Conservative-led governments, limiting the role of the state in educational matters is exemplified by the expansion of academies and free schools (both of which are examined more closely in Chapter 6). This new way of organising schooling has meant a lessening of the control that government and local authorities have over how schools are administered and a more prominent role for the private sector. This expanded role of the private sector in education, both at home and overseas, raises important challenges for critics who argue that it is the state’s role to school its citizens and through this function to ensure educational equity (for example, Ball 2007; Ravitch 2013; Unwin and Yandell 2017).

Brown and Cameron’s views about the role of the state in enabling social justice reflect fundamental differences in the ideologies of the Conservative and Labour political traditions. Traditionally and simply put, the view of political parties whose ideologies lie to the Left (i.e. Labour) is that the state has an important role to play in ensuring that people’s life experiences are fair. Political parties whose ideologies lie further to the Right (i.e. Conservative) argue that individual rights and responsibilities, rather than the state, are paramount. A fuller discussion of the historical and philosophical roots of these ideologies is beyond the scope of this book but Box 1.1 provides an example of how these political perspectives relate to issues of poverty and education.

Box 1.1: The relationship between poverty and education – differing political views

The view from the Left is that the inferior educational experiences of the poor hold them back and prevent them from competing with better educated groups. Therefore the poor are forced into low-waged and menial work and social mobility is stalled.

The view from the Right is that the poor are poor because they failed to work hard and take advantage of educational opportunities. It is their individual responsibility to take hold of the opportunities that are available and so prosper.

The moderate view is that the poor are poor because of inadequate education partly because of inferior schools but also because of disrupted families, for example, which prevent them from absorbing the education that is available.

A good illustration of how the two main political parties differ with regard to the role of the state and the individual can be further explored through the views of two relatively recent long-serving Prime Ministers: Tony Blair (Labour, 1997–2007) and Margaret Thatcher (Conservative, 1979–1990). One of the most famous recent examples of a leading political figure challenging the role of the state in ensuring social justice was Margaret Thatcher’s 1987 interview to Woman’s Own magazine (Thatcher 1987). In what became known as the ‘Society Speech’, Thatcher argued that, rather than relying on the assistance of the state, people should assume responsibility for their own lives:

I think we have gone through a period when too many children and people have been given to understand ‘I have a problem, it is the Government’s job to cope with it!’ … ‘I am homeless, the Government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first … There is no such thing as society. There is a living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate. (Thatcher 1987, emphasis added)

Thatcher’s view of the primacy of individual rights over collective rights (Thatcher 1985) extends to her conception of ‘social justice’, a term she considered to be unclear and imprecise and which corresponded to a ‘doctrine’ that was being promoted by a ‘progressive consensus’ whose view it was that the state should be responsible for promoting equality (Thatcher 1975). Thatcher’s own views were somewhat different. Consider this from a speech she gave to the Institute of Socioeconomic Studies in New York:

… the pursuit of equality itself is a mirage. What’s more desirable and more practicable than the pursuit of equality is the pursuit of equality of opportunity. And opportunity means nothing unless it includes the right to be unequal and the freedom to be different. One of the reasons that we value individuals is not because they’re all the same, but because they’re all different. I believe you have a saying in the Middle West: ‘Don’t cut down the tall poppies. Let them rather grow tall.’ I would say, let our children grow tall and some taller than others if they have the ability in them to do so. (Thatcher 1975)

Margaret Thatcher was quite clear in her view of the diminished role that the state should play in ensuring equality and social (or educational) justice. She emphasised individual rather than state responsibility and while promoting a concept of ‘equality of opportunity’ also defended an individual’s right to be different and, by extension, unequal.

Tony Blair’s New Labour, on the other hand, embraced the term ‘social justice’, explicitly linking it to education:

To those who say, ‘Where is Labour’s passion for social justice?’ I say education is social justice. Education is liberty. Education is opportunity. Education is the key not just to how we as individuals succeed and prosper, but to the future of this country. (Blair 1997)

During the 13 years that Labour was last in office, issues of social justice underpinned many of their social and educational policies. Their record on social justice and the extent to which they have succeeded in making society fairer is explored briefly in Chapters 2 and 3 and in much more detail in two edited collections by John Hills and colleagues (Hills and Stewart 2005; Hills et al. 2009). But it is clear that improving social justice and social mobility were explicit aims of the two most recent Labour governments, as Blair’s successor Gordon Brown reiterated:

So instead of, as in the past, developing only some of the potential of some of the people, our mission for liberty for all and fairness to all summons us to develop all of the potential of all the people. (Brown 2005)

In May 2010, David Cameron became the leader of the first Coalition government the country had seen since the Second World War. With office came Cameron’s idea for solving the problems of what he called, ‘Broken Britain’. His view of a ‘Big Society’ presented its own conceptualisation of justice and equality:

Of course in a free society, some people will be richer than others. Of course if we make opportunity more equal, some will do better than others. But there’s a massive difference between a system that allows fair reward for talent, effort and enterprise and a system that keeps millions of people at the bottom locked out of the success enjoyed by the mainstream … Instead, we should focus on the causes of poverty as well as the symptoms because that is the best way to reduce it in the long term. And we should focus on closing the gap between the bottom and the middle, not because that is the easy thing to do, but because focusing on those who do not have the chance of a good life is the most important thing to do. (Cameron 2009, emphasis added)

For Cameron, the ‘Big Society’ represented the empowerment of ordinary people to take charge of their lives through strengthening communities and civil society. This might involve enabling parents to start their own schools (see Chapter 6) or encouraging people to undertake more voluntary work or charitable giving. But it also involved ‘taking power away from politicians and giving it to people’ and, so Cameron argued, enabling society to become fairer (Cameron 2010). By 2015 Cameron’s view of a Big Society had evolved into one that was concerned with people’s life chances. As Cameron saw it:

We can make Britain a place where a good life is in reach for everyone who is willing to work and do the right thing. (Cameron 2015)

Once again there is an emphasis on personal responsibility and the importance of work – of ‘doing the right thing’. The focus was less on the causes of poverty, such as low wages, but more on the consequences of poverty and in particular a lack of opportunities. In an important 2016 speech on Life Chances, Cameron argued that:

This fixation on welfare – the state writing a cheque to push people’s incomes just above the poverty line – this treated the symptoms, not the causes of poverty; and, over time, it trapped some people in dependency. (Cameron 2016a)

Instead he favoured a free market approach to generating prosperity and raising living standards that enabled more choice and brought competition to public services: the idea that ‘a rising tide will lift all boats’. In doing this, Cameron began to reframe how we understood poverty, he argued that being in poverty was not just about economics (i.e. money) but that there were other very important social consequences of poverty, such as worklessness and drug or alcohol addiction, that could adversely affect one’s opportunities and therefore their life chances. This reframing of poverty and disadvantage as being not just about having little money is an important one because it has affected how the government thinks we should measure poverty, and in particular child poverty, in Britain today. There is more on this in Chapter 3.

By the summer of 2016, Britain had a new Conservative Prime Minister – Theresa May – and David Cameron’s strategy for improving life chances was replaced by a new vision for Britain as The Great Meritocracy:

I want Britain to be the world’s Great Meritocracy – a country where everyone has a fair chance to go as far as their talent and their hard work will allow. (Theresa May 2016)

In presenting her ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Publisher Note
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Acknowledgements
• Contents
• About the Author
• New to this Second Edition
• Preface
• 1 An Introduction to Education and Social Justice
• 2 Social Justice and Social Inequality
• 3 Childhood Inequalities and Social Justice
• 4 International Perspectives on Education and Social Justice
• 5 Falling Standards and Failing Students? Inequalities in Student Outcomes
• 6 Good Schools for All: Schooling and Social Justice
• 7 Social Justice and Education in America
• 8 How Do Young People Experience Social Justice?
• 9 Higher Education and Social Justice
• 10 Social Justice and the Learning Society
• 11 Concluding Comments
• References
• Index