Social Justice and Equity in Education and Schooling

Denise Mifsud (University of Bath, UK)

Schooling for Social Justice, Equity and Inclusion: Problematizing Theory, Policy and Practice

ISBN: 978-1-83549-761-6, eISBN: 978-1-83549-758-6

Publication date: 15 July 2024

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Abstract

This introduction aims to set the context for the subsequent chapters that problematize various aspects of social justice, equity, and inclusion through particular lenses, and/or methodologies. This is done by presenting the ‘problem’ of social justice and equity in education, while simultaneously making links with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The term ‘social justice’ is appearing in numerous public texts and discourses within the education field, thus becoming a key concept in current education policy and practice. Moreover, the concept of social justice is crucial to theorizing about education and schooling, consequently being considered by politicians, policymakers, and practitioners in their thinking about the nature of education and the purpose of schools. Regrettably, education practitioners, researchers, and policymakers often utilize this umbrella term (social justice) while leaving out salient details about its social, cultural, economic, and political bearing. Notwithstanding the unanimous agreement on the desirability of social justice as an educational goal, this is complemented by a parallel contestation over its actual meaning and application in relation to schooling, that is, in relation to the formulation of policy and how it is to be included in practice. This chapter seeks to unravel the conceptual confusion around the terms social justice, equity, and inclusion in relation to schooling and education, through an exploration of the existing literature in the field.

Keywords

Citation

Mifsud, D. (2024), "Social Justice and Equity in Education and Schooling", Schooling for Social Justice, Equity and Inclusion: Problematizing Theory, Policy and Practice, Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 1-25. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83549-758-620241001

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Emerald Publishing Limited

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This work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of these works (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

Introduction

Following substantial periods of pandemic-induced school closures, students returned with unequal levels of knowledge and skills. Some students, especially those from more underprivileged backgrounds, failed to return. Moreover, COVID-19 moved the curriculum online as it became ‘embedded in devices that technologize our children’ (Pacheco, 2021, p. 11) leading to the question of whether the ‘sustainable, inclusive human development’ (United Nations, 2019, p. 64) is achievable through this new accelerating normal post-pandemic. The COVID-19 impact highlighted inequalities of multiple kinds, especially so in school provision and family support, thus the necessity of a global focus on the common good. Therefore, understanding and mitigating the impact of school closures, especially in terms of learning losses is high on the agenda of education policy makers who are struggling to minimize disruptions to education, particularly towards the neediest. This leads to an explicit emphasis on equity in education, and its counterparts of inclusion and social justice, issues aligning closely with the global SDGs of ‘No Poverty’ (SDG 1) and ‘Quality Education’ (SDG 4) (United Nations, 2015). The main purpose of this book is to problematize discourses of social justice, equity, and inclusion that are presented as given constructs to schools and through which they are expected to initiate schooling provision and practices to ‘solve’ a wider societal, national, and global plaguing setback. This will be done via applications of social theory to conceptual and empirical case studies from Malta and Australia, two English-speaking Commonwealth countries that despite diverging in area, population size, and geographic location, present issues that can be applied across different contexts, demonstrating the universality and simultaneous distinction across thorny matters related to social justice, equity, and inclusion in schools worldwide.

Social Justice in Education and Compulsory Schooling: A Case of Forbidden Fruit?

According to Connell (2012),

Education is dangerous, because schools do not just reproduce culture, they shape the new society that is coming into existence all around us … Social justice concerns the nature of the service itself, and its consequences for society through time … [a time where] Education becomes a zone of manufactured insecurity, with achievement through competition as the only remedy. But in a zero-sum competition, achievement for one means failure for all the rest. (p. 681)

Connell (2012) above draws attention to a major shift in school systems inequalities based on institutional segregation to new forms steered by market mechanisms with students redefined as competitive clients in complete disregard to educationally relevant differences such as poverty, gender, ethnicity, rurality, sexual orientation, and migrant status, among others. This points to a lack of adequate educational responses to deep diversity in terms of curricular justice and the social encounters constituting an (un)just education system.

The term ‘social justice’ in the field of education in general and particularly in schools has been the subject of much scholarly debate, resulting in a plurality of conceptions and interpretations, with no clear consensus as to what constitutes a socially just society, and consequently, a socially just school. A significant shortcoming in the literature is the lack of say from those non-Anglophone nations not considered as geopolitically dominant (Gumus et al., 2021), leading to a reconsideration of educational systems in transitional and previously under-represented areas and their having to take the direction of Western countries. Stressing the vital nature of context, Waite and Arar (2020) problematize the concepts of ‘the social’ and ‘culture’ in social justice education, that ‘in their mundane, common usage, are problematic and can get us into trouble’ (p. 172), thus advocating a recognition of difference. MacDonald (2023a) notes that the existing literature advocates for an all-embracing understanding of social justice in an attempt to attend to the differences in educational outcomes resulting from social, cultural, economic, and political opportunities, or lack of. Notwithstanding, all educational struggles for social justice ‘remain unfinished and incomplete’ (Bogotch et al., 2008, p. xii). Fraser (2013) prefers a particular way of thinking about injustice by focusing on distribution and querying ‘How much economic inequality does justice permit?’ (p. 192); on recognition in terms of ‘What constitutes equal respect, which kinds of differences merit public recognition?’ (p. 192); as well as representation, ‘If representation is the defining issue of the political, then the characteristic political injustice is misrepresentation’ (p. 192). In the context of globalization, Fraser (2013) suggests that the focus on injustices revolves around ‘integrating struggles against maldistribution, misrecognition, and misrepresentation within a post-Westphalian frame’ (p. 208). This three-dimensional theory encompasses the economic, cultural, and political dimensions (Fraser, 2005). Distributive principles, the economic dimension, acknowledge the inequitable allocation of material aids, including exploitation, economic marginalization, and deprivation. Recognitive principles, the cultural dimension, focus on the equal acknowledgement of the historical and cultural perspectives of all groups within a particular society. Representative justice, the political dimension, gives all people the right of participation and opinion.

Pijanowski and Brady (2020) argue that despite the lack of consensus on definitions of social justice, there are recurrent themes and concepts in the plurality of social justice meanings, by identifying two primary conceptualizations of social justice in education across theory and practice. These concepts of distributive justice and social recognition, though ‘not mutually exclusive in theory, they can in practice serve to unintentionally undermine the other’ (p. 2). Distributive approaches to social justice have been however critiqued for positioning children as consumers without acknowledging them as products of social processes (Young, 1990). Similarly, North (2006) highlights two tensions that emerge from the amalgamation of distribution and recognition in relation to social justice in practice. The first tension incorporates disparate emphasis on equality as difference and equality as sameness, while the second source of friction evolves from varying degrees of attention to both macro (e.g. policymaking) and micro (e.g. individual behaviours) level processes. For educators and scholars, social justice encompasses what a socially just education system looks like in practice, and the role of education in the development and maintenance of a socially just society.

Pijanowski and Brady (2020) argue that social justice is so elusive to singularly define due to its ‘multidisciplinary and multi-action nature’, further stating that ‘simply dividing complex constructs like education evenly or equitably falls short of acknowledging how various oppressive systems heavily influenced the design of those same educational goods and how systemic oppression has affected the ways in which people access education’ (p. 4). Social justice as an issue cannot be compartmentalized into and attributed to the schooling milieu, teachers and schools are not the problem, but rather the structural and systemic inequalities that politicians and policy makers tend to ignore through the lack of adequate policy focus. Lingard (2021) further argues that in contemporary politics and policy, social justice has been datafied and framed by metrics in what Mau (2019) calls the ‘metric society’, thus the need to retether to a way of thinking about injustice (Lingard et al., 2014). The meritocratic and social mobility function of schools is linked to the extent of structural inequality, with Wooldridge (2021) stating that ‘the meritocratic elite is in danger of hardening into an aristocracy which passes on its privileges to its children by investing heavily in education, and which, because of its sustained success, looks down on the rest of society’ (p. 17).

The Subordination of Education to Economic Imperatives

Reay (2022) argues that educational policy is bound by the prescriptions of the OECD and its global monitoring systems, stating that ‘the OECD has always been, and remains, an economic institution led by economists’ (p. 436). However, economics as a discipline has proven itself weak on social justice and inequality (Walraevens, 2021). Under the guise of being a global driver of educational improvement, the OECD has neglected other immeasurable aspects of school life, such as well-being, relationships, and collegiality, that are equally important to improve performance holistically (McNamara et al., 2021).

MacDonald (2023a) highlights the fact that the terms ‘equity’ and ‘social justice’, are used interchangeably in studies of poverty and disadvantage, while the OECD equitable policy schooling recommendations consider equity in terms of fairness and inclusiveness (Field et al., 2007). Social justice has been reformulated as equity to be regarded as a gauge of comparative performance (Keddie, 2012; Lingard et al., 2014), with both terms becoming problematic in that ‘stronger conceptions of social justice as equality of opportunity in an equal society have given way to weaker conceptions of equity as fairness in a meritocratic society’ (Lingard et al., 2014, pp. 71–712). Rizvi and Lingard (2009) also suggest that equality has been relegated by the OECD from being a moral value to becoming a component of human capital development. Boyum (2014) also criticizes the OECD policy documents for their inherent meritocratic outlook, stating that it ‘explicitly operates with a loose idea of equal opportunity … but implicitly with a meritocratic variant of fair equality of opportunity’ (p. 865). He further concludes that the processes of the OECD set apart educational justice from social justice in general emphasizing ‘equality of opportunity as a means through which to achieve positions in the social hierarchy … [without any] discussion of the rightfulness of that social hierarchy itself’ (p. 867).

This subordination of education to economic imperatives is reiterated by Ross (2021):

Meritocracy has turned education into a competition for accreditation. Equality of opportunity is used to justify the concentration of educational resources on the fraction of the population who are judged to best benefit by its efforts … It is turned into a game, with the metaphor of a level playing field being used to justify winners and losers. Despite the rhetoric of raising standards, the objective of the educational system is to identify and mark sheep and goats. The losers … become the authors of their own subsequent misfortunes, and are encouraged to believe and accept this. (pp. 8–9, original emphasis)

Inevitably, issues of social justice and equality are sidelined in a system where educational inequalities have been rationalized as a matter of economic inefficiency that needs to be addressed to increase productivity rather than social justice. Educational inequalities are tightly interwoven with social inequalities and cannot be addressed in isolation. Reay (2012) questions the extent to which a socially just educational system is possible in an unjust society, calling out the focus on social mobility as ‘a red herring’, as it is ‘primarily about recycling inequality rather than tackling it’ (p. 593). Consequently, she identifies three main areas acting as barriers to a socially just educational system that revolve around attitudes, the economy, and neoliberalism. The pre-set belief of the upper and middle classes of their own social and intellectual superiority, together with the myth of a swelling middle class despite the reality of a large working-class cohort amid growing relative poverty are problematic notions. These two factors are buttressed by the highly competitive culture of neoliberalism that prohibits far-reaching systemic changes, social redistribution, radical curriculum innovation, and discursive shifts required for a socially just educational system.

Do educational policies act as change agents or reproducers of social structures? It is possible, and highly probable, for educational practices to replicate the existing, persistent inequalities within society. Hartsmar et al. (2021) identify three main claims that are generally utilized for educational policies targeted at reducing social inequalities. These are attributed to social reasons (unequal treatment among different social groups); economic justifications (inequalities engendered by the exclusive focus on education to increase economic competitiveness); and the human rights and equity argument (encompassing recognition of all group differences to minimize the differential access to rights imposed by society). Potentially disadvantaged groups may fall under the following broad categories: socioeconomic disadvantage; minority ethnic disadvantage; gender; indigenous minorities; disability; linguistic minorities; and religious minorities. It is also the case that degrees of disadvantage exist and the conceptualization of social difference varies between countries, nations, and geopolitical standing. There is also the issue of intersectionality of factors among those various disadvantaged groups that may yield complex inequalities that are challenging to address. Various explanations for inequalities in schools have been provided, all bearing implicitly and explicitly on policy. These include pathological explanations; transmitted deprivation; home-based factors; school factors; and societal structure. Education alone cannot reduce inequality; moreover, policies in other areas may inadvertently undermine the impact of educational policies targeted to address inequity. Hartsmar et al. (2021) identify four particular policy responses that hamper the achievement of equitable educational outcomes. The first is the denial of the existence of disadvantaged groups, where countries are reluctant to acknowledge the lack of homogeneity. The second response was to confuse categories, including all inequalities under the (socio)economic umbrella. Equality policies may also be in competition with other policy agendas, thus having a counter-effect on schooling. Some policies fail to address equality of outcome, with their sole focus being on the provision of ‘equality of opportunity’, blaming individuals who fail to be ‘opportunistic’. I regard the four responses hereby discussed as ‘policies of evasion’ rather than ‘policies of engagement’ leading to further systemic inequity.

Social Justice in Practice: Enactments in Classrooms and Schools

As discussed previously, the identification of an exclusive, universally accepted definition of social justice in education remains elusive, but there appear to be three evolving views of the social justice phase in the field (Pijanowski & Brady, 2020). The social justice lexicon is becoming more expansive and inclusive in terms of philosophical explorations and activity types, while social justice conversations within educational systems, whereas previously considered as politically volatile, have become politically normed. Furthermore, stronger links have developed at the convergence of distributive justice, social recognition, and macro/micro conceptions of justice.

School leaders are expected to foster an inclusive and equitable environment for all students, irrespective of background and of the inherently inequitable society within which the school operates. A social justice approach has been conceptualized as ‘positionality, a set of analytical skills, and a disposition for positive transformation’ (Pijanowski & Brady, 2020, p. 11). DeMatthews et al. (2021) classify school principals as either improvement-focused or intersectional-focused in their attempt to foster school-inclusive cultures. Improvement-focused leaders regard developing inclusive practices and raising student achievement as complementary, while intersectional-focused ones engage in ongoing critique of traditional approaches to special education practices and routines. While different levels of intentionality in the weaving of social justice framing in educators’ modus operandi exist, it is evident that effective leadership practices cannot be extricated from social justice concepts (Bogotch, 2002; Theoharis, 2007).

Notwithstanding the moral justification for social justice efforts in education, a number of obstacles remain at both operational and conceptual levels. Promoting the academic and socio-emotional growth of all students is problematic. Moreover, the segregation and exclusion of underprivileged and disenfranchised social groups is frequently simulated in schools where fostering an environment that acknowledges and embraces differences is increasingly difficult. These may be exacerbated by other barriers to social justice leadership initiatives that try to mobilize intra-institutional activism. This may be due to the principals’ ethical commitment to upholding rules; other hindering policies; traditional community values; the convergence of multiple socio-economic challenges; and the existence of contradictory social justice goals (Berkovich, 2014). Other issues relate to a lack of recognition of cultural variations, lack of acknowledgement of sociopolitical issues in diverse geographical areas, as well as the challenges of addressing students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) (Qureshi et al., 2020). Of greater concern is the ‘implicit bias’ present in schools that ultimately has a negative influence on students not considered ‘mainstream’. Implicit bias acts on students through four pathways, that are: teacher expectations; teacher traits; curricular materials; and access in a system where ‘social justice is often vaguely represented as more of a phenomenon than a measurable concept’ (Beachum & Gullo, 2020, p. 20). In addition to the above-mentioned obstacles to social justice in schools, many countries lack the infrastructure necessary to assess the effectiveness of those measures adopted to foster social justice (Samman et al., 2018). In the present scenario where current education policy ‘disadvantages too many in the interests of the too few’ (p. 42), Woods (2021) advocates for scepticism among educators and researchers in their quest for ‘high quality, high equity education systems’:

The question to be asked of evidence-based practice is what evidence. The question to be asked of national benefit is benefit for who. The questions to be asked when told that all children must learn basic skills, is whose children and whose basics. The question to be asked when told about these children, is how do you know. (p. 41, added emphasis)

These ‘hindrances’ to social justice in education have implications for policy and practice. As a result, research in educational leadership suggests that principals committed to social justice will tend to exhibit a range of practices. MacDonald (2023b) summarizes these (normative) practices as follows: focus on pedagogy; leadership dispersal; critical thinking; shared social justice ethos; networking and partnerships; supportive social relationships; political activism; as well as critical reflection and reflexivity. Research in educational leadership for social justice has challenged these normative assumptions (MacDonald, 2023a; Mifsud, 2021) through illustrations of disjunctions between leaders’ conceptualizations of social justice and their practices in schools, especially when set against the policyscape background of what ought to be happening. Are such principals acting in socially just ways, despite their intention not translating as such in practice? Or is it a matter of academics and policy makers reconceptualizing socially just leadership practices? Qureshi et al. (2020) propose a framework for social justice in education, that among other elements, would include: inclusive and relevant curricula; focus on children’s values; local community involvement; employment of qualified, competent professionals; optimal material resourcing; additional after-school hours support; in addition to the basic infrastructure of the physical school environment.

Although it is easy to see that we do not currently have a state of social justice, it is not always obvious what the policy prescriptions should be. Gains that are made by following one approach may be offset by losses in other areas. (Francis et al., 2017, p. 424)

Enacting social justice in schools is a complex matter not only owing to its conceptual confusion, but also due to the fact that how it is translated in practice is not clear-cut either in terms of educational functions and content, or in terms of modes of configuration and provision.

Equity and Inclusion as Counterparts of Social Justice

‘Universal education of good quality … is not a panacea for authoritarian, inequitable, and unjust societies’ (Shaeffer, 2019, p. 191). Notwithstanding, disparities in basic education provision exist with many children still not attending school, while others are attending but not learning. There are various reasons why these children, as ‘members of particular groups – marginalized, disadvantaged, excluded’ (Shaeffer, 2019, p. 182) are denied a good quality education. This may be due to lack of government resources in terms of poor human and financial assets, corruption, or national budgets not prioritizing basic education. Another reason is discriminatory government policies or school/community attitudes denying equal opportunities to certain groups, further exacerbated by neglect and disinterest from the same governments, communities, and/or schools.

Inclusion (as applied in education, especially compulsory school settings) is a convoluted and disputed concept, with researchers, policy makers, and practitioners debating its meaning, rationale, and implementation. Inclusive education is often promoted as a right for all learners, a perspective affirmed by UNESCO (2017) by placing inclusion and equity as guiding principles for all educational policies and practices, in addition to its prominence in key European documents (Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, 2017; Council of the European Union, 2018a, 2018b; European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, 2020). On the other hand, inclusive education in academic literature is presented as a philosophy guiding practice for quality education provision to all (Allan, 2014). UNESCO (2009) proffers three arguments to justify inclusion: its response to diverse learner needs; the promotion of a fairer society; and the value-for-money presented by inclusive rather than segregated schools. Kefallinou et al. (2020) problematize the educational and social justifications. Since inclusive education provides equitable opportunities and outcomes, the effectiveness discourse relies on research exploring the relationship between inclusion and achievement. Moreover, inclusive education goes beyond the provision of quality education at compulsory school level. How far and wide is this happening? Can all ‘achievement(s)’ be measured? Are all ‘achievements’ measurable? What constitutes an ‘achievement’? Which system features influence equity, or to be more precise, the provision of equitable opportunities (and hopefully equitable outcomes) in school? Eurydice (European Commission/EACEA/Eurydice, 2020) identifies education policies and structures that may influence equity in education as falling broadly under stratification, standardization, and support measures. (In)equitable provision may come about due to: diversity of school types; school choice policies; and school admissions policies. Various tracking setups, grade repetition requirements, and support for low achievers and disadvantaged schools may lead to diverse opportunities to learn. Different levels of school autonomy and school accountability may also limit equity, as well as the level of public funding and early childhood education and care (ECEC) provision.

Inclusion and equity can be confusing as terms as they have a different significance for different people and are often used concurrently and interchangeably. While regarding inclusion and equity as principles, Ainscow (2020a) regards inclusion in education as a process that ought to be concerned with the identification and removal of barriers; focused on advancing the presence, participation, and achievement of all students, especially those at risk of marginalization, exclusion, or underachievement. Student learning and participation are impacted by within-school factors (e.g. policies and practices); between-school factors (e.g. local school systems characteristics); and beyond-school factors (e.g. local demographics, economics, cultures, and histories).

Despite ongoing endeavours by policy makers, academics, and practitioners to develop inclusive schools comprising inclusive cultures, politics, and practices, inclusion remains a troubled, problematic, and contested field (Allan, 2014). Qvortrup and Qvortrup (2018) detect a dilemma between efforts and limits due to the gap between vision and implementation, as well as different conceptualizations of the same phenomenon. By default, this leads to a dynamic relationship between inclusion and exclusion, that is, by definition inclusion always leads to exclusion. Qvortrup and Qvortrup (2018) further identify definitional dilemmas in this conceptual plurality that lead to problems in research and practice. In summary, these dilemmas are:

Should I focus on cost efficiency or student welfare? … On inclusion as a precondition for learning achievements … or … consider other social contexts as arenas of inclusion and exclusion? … On numbers and social participation in school … or … also consider students’ experience of being recognized by the social community? (Qvortrup & Qvortrup, 2018, p. 807)

Qvortrup and Qvortrup additionally argue that the act of labelling a student as ‘included’ is an act of exclusion, while it must also be acknowledged that ‘inclusive work will never reach a stable state of total inclusion’ (p. 810) in schools. Thus, they suggest an inclusive education system operationalized according to different levels, types, and degrees of inclusion. Who, then, are the excluded? Children excluded from education make up a heterogeneous population, with UNICEF (2018) identifying three main categories of out-of-school children. Total school exclusion may happen due to location, status of living, and group identity. There are also those who were pushed out of school, and those who are enrolled and attending but not learning due to individual or group characteristics (e.g. language, gender, poverty, special needs) or due to the poor quality of education provided (e.g. inadequate school facilities, untrained and unpaid teachers, irrelevant curricula). Shaeffer (2019) advocates a shift in the blame culture for school exclusion by reinterpreting the causes of failure – ‘Children do not suddenly drop out of school; they are rather slowly pushed out by the system and by school itself’ (p. 187, emphasis added).

Literature advocates various ways of developing more inclusive education systems and schools in order to promote more just, equitable, and cohesive societies, at both the macro and micro levels. Ministries of education need to carry out a more systematic identification and mapping of those excluded from school and design specific programmes to focus on certain groups such as girls, boys, minorities, the poor, rural and remote populations, learners with special educational needs, and refugees and migrants, among others. Specific reforms may also tackle teacher education; curriculum and teaching-learning materials such as textbooks; as well as student assessment mechanisms (Shaeffer, 2019). Measures at the micro-level would encompass a whole school approach (Ainscow, 2020a) directed towards inclusion and equity by essentially developing child-friendly schools where school development is prioritized by the administration which also invites community involvement. To what extent can this inclusive development be evidenced?

Kefallinou et al. (2020) argue that despite the justification for inclusion in theory, a vacuum exists between the aim of inclusive education and the evidence of its effects, asking, ‘To what extent does research evidence support inclusive education and its implementation?’ (p. 136). If effectiveness is evaluated on the basis of restricted or unsuitable performance indicators, the use of data may invite misinterpretation; conceal more than they reveal; and have an adverse effect on professionals’ conduct – under the guise of promoting the causes of accountability and clarity. Collected evidence needs to relate to the ‘presence, participation and achievement’ (Ainscow, 2020b, p. 10, original emphasis) of all students, especially those identified at risk.

‘No Poverty’ and ‘Quality Education’: The SDGs and Their Contribution to More Socially Just, Equitable, and Inclusive Schooling

Inequity is not inevitable. Inequality is a choice. Promoting equity – a fair chance for every child, for all children – is also a choice. A choice we can make, and must make. For their future, and the future of our world. (UNICEF, 2016, p. vii)

The SDGs are a set of 17 goals and 169 targets (building upon the Millennium Development Goals [MDGs]) adopted by the UN member nations (United Nations, 2015), coming into force in January 2016 and intended to drive international development work until 2030. The social justice issues explored in this book closely align with two of the SDGs: No Poverty (SDG 1) and Quality Education (SDG 4). SDG 1 calls for the eradication of poverty in all its manifestations, with a vision for shared prosperity, a basic standard of living, and social protection benefits for everyone. SDG 4 aims to safeguard access to quality education to all throughout all life stages, as well as increase the number of youths who have the relevant employment and entrepreneurship skills.

Monitoring of these SDGs has revealed progress in aspects of multidimensional poverty, with an increase in participation in basic education, but inequity, exclusion, and social injustice are yet rampant as will be discussed below (Eurostat, 2023; Sachs et al., 2023). Slow and uneven progress on poverty reduction may leave hundreds of millions in extreme poverty by 2030. If current trends continue, only one-third of countries will have national poverty by 2030. Amid overlapping crises, coverage and expenditures on social protection programmes remain low. However, the share of government spending on essential services, including education, health, and social protection has increased over the past two decades in advanced, emerging, and developing economies globally. Children and young people are more affected by the risk of poverty or social exclusion than other age groups, this risk being determined by their parents’ situation, with 24.4% living in households at risk in the European Union (EU). This level of risk is also determined by subgroups, which in the EU in 2021 were children living in households with parents having a lower secondary level of education; unemployed parents; non-EU migrants; and a household composition of single adults with dependent children (Eurostat, 2023). Progress towards quality education was already sluggish and protracted before the pandemic, but COVID-19 has had devastating impacts on education, causing learning losses in four out of five of the 104 countries studied (Sachs et al., 2023). Primary and secondary school completion is rising worldwide, albeit at a very slow and uneven pace. The progress on improving primary school reading levels is disappointing with an estimated 300 million children and young adults lacking basic numeracy and literacy skills by 2030. Access to early childhood education has expanded, but progress has slowed since 2015. Digital skills are still low. Basic school infrastructure varies widely across regions – one in four primary schools globally lacks basic services like electricity, water, sanitation, and handwashing facilities. Access to computers, the Internet and disability-adapted facilities is even lower, with fewer than one in two primary schools having access, on average. Regions with the lowest access to basic facilities include Central and Southern Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America and the Caribbean. Moreover, in 2020, more than 14% of teachers were not qualified according to national norms, with sub-Saharan Africa facing the biggest challenge (Sachs et al., 2023). The EU exhibits similar trends in relation to SDG 4 (Eurostat, 2023), where participation in ECEC is rising too slowly to meet the 2030 target, and educational outcomes in reading, maths and science have continued to deteriorate as revealed by the poor OECD PISA results (European Commission, 2019).

Boeren (2019) warns against regarding the 17 SDGs as fragmented ‘work packages’, with correlations among the various goals, as demonstrated in the discussion above outlining the effect of poverty on quality education. Education is mentioned specifically in a number of SDG targets, namely SDG 3 on good health and well-being, SDG 5 on gender equality and women’s empowerment, and SDG 8 on decent work – all having a bearing on social justice and equity in schooling. The SDG 4 targets have however been criticized due to their sense of becoming ‘lost in translation’ to indicators (King, 2017), given the intended vision of inclusive, equitable education. The emphasis is on forms of performance review rather than elucidation of intricate concepts and fundamental implications of equality (Unterhalter & North, 2017). Unterhalter (2019) critiques the narrow interpretation of equity across the SDG 4 indicators, due to the focus being solely on metrics of distribution and participation, where ‘Equity is portrayed as some kind of numerical relationship (parity or equivalence), but not an undoing of structural inequalities’ (Unterhalter, 2019, p. 46). The meaning of the SDG 4 targets on quality education seems to mirror the contemporary neoliberal discourse on education policy that is steered towards benchmarks, indicators, and targets – a ‘governance by numbers’ (Ozga, 2012) approach. This progress monitoring towards the achievement of targets exerts pressure on countries and on the learners themselves. Boeren (2019) argues that such performance reports do not provide enough contextual information as countries may score high on a certain measure which is likely to be the result of a wide range of aggregate factors. Hence, the importance of context in tackling social (in)justice and (in)equity in schooling, rather than replicating policies in order to generate a ‘quick fix’ of broken education systems (Nir et al., 2018).

Contributions to Theory, Policy, and Practice

How do we act in a way that does not reproduce ethnocentric, gendered, class-laden values and treat all – learners, educators, policy makers – in a way that accords them their equality, without imposing our own suppositions about social justice and educational transformation? … How can we justify our critique of the state against our own determination of social values and the public good? … How can we challenge such power [in society], and disseminate our findings to it and beyond it? (Ross, 2021, p. 314)

While globalization has increased pressures on education systems to adopt neoliberal economic strategies, this benchmarking approach to comparison has led to skewed understandings of system effectiveness and ‘what works’. Torrance et al. (2023) thus suggest focusing on the connections between the context of a system, the influence of global trends and drivers on national education policy, increasing globalization, and the interests of transnational organizations, proposing a comparative framework exploring the micro, meso, and macro levels within a system. Eryaman (2006) proposes a set of philosophical principles to guide social justice research for the public good, that are presented in Table 1:

Table 1.

Philosophical Principles to Guide Social Justice Research for the Public Good (Adapted from Eryaman, 2006, p. 1213).

Philosophical Principles	Applications to Social Justice Research
Ontological	challenging presumptions, subjectivities, and prejudices
Epistemological	linking language and discursive practices control to the present unequal knowledge distribution
Political	questioning control of knowledge selection and distribution
Economic	linking language and discursive practices control to the present unequal knowledge distribution
Ideological	querying what and whose knowledge is most worthy of teaching and learning
Technical	deciding on the best access strategies to the community
Aesthetic	making links with our own discursive practices without being objective and ethnocentric
Ethical	balancing responsible and fair treatment to others without imposing presuppositions
Historical	exploring existing discourses on educational and social research issues

These considerations consolidate UNESCO’s (2015) construction of the public good in education as a shared social endeavour comprising school responsibility and commitment to solidarity in the individual and collective dimensions. Ross (2021) argues that to counter for population groups achieving a less favourable distribution of education-related outcomes than the majority, differential (unequal) treatment must be meted out. In other words, the failure of policy initiatives addressing social (in)justice and (in)equity suggests that it is the outcome of policy and practice that is significant, rather than the intention.

This book thus considers the triage of theory, policy, and practice (Mifsud, 2023) in the presentation of the subsequent chapters, where it is attempted to maintain an awareness of our own bias within distinctive systems, due to our previous and current positionings within the various local contexts at theory, policy, and practitioner levels. We explore methods for the co-production of knowledge, emphasizing research with participants, rather than research on participants (Mifsud, 2021). Niesche and Gowlett (2019) argue for the ‘inescapable connection’ between theory and practice – to which I also add ‘policy’ – given the hidden theoretical premises in everything. This book adapts Strunk and Locke’s (2019) stance ‘that research [in social justice and equity in education] must always be theoretical, and that without theory, research becomes reductive and meaningless’ (p. xix).

The potential of Bacchi’s (2009) ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach to problematize current policy problems, their construction and representation, and more importantly to think creatively about alternatives is exemplified through a worked example of policy analysis presented in this book. Furthermore, this study highlights the fact that there are a number of persistent challenges for achieving equity in education, especially the immigrant-native educational gap, despite European policy makers having been very active in the educational field, evident in numerous educational reforms in the last decade (Hippe et al., 2016). Education policies need to be re-thought to reduce inequity and inequality, while measuring policy impact and utilizing evidence-based research is also vital to policy making. Problematizing the notion of social justice in education as presented in the literature via Actor-Network Theory is meant to generate scepticism and critique among the policy makers, academics, and education practitioners who are concerned with issues of social justice and equity in schools. The adoption of a culturally responsive leadership approach to contribute to the improvement of outcomes for Indigenous students in Australia identifies one way of achieving more equitable and socially just educational leadership to overcome the historical marginalization of Indigenous students in relation to non-Indigenous ones. The issues raised in this book are legitimate across the international context, especially due to the increasing globalization of education policy (Ball, 2008) and the global extension of practices of policy borrowing widely established among Western nations (Lingard, 2010; Whitty et al., 2016), moreover when combined with the expansion of social justice leadership research across various global regions (Arar et al., 2017).

This book provides examples of case studies from Malta and Australia, two English-speaking Commonwealth countries that despite their diversity present issues that can be applied across different contexts. Besides this, these two nations have strong ties due to the huge wave of migration that was initiated in the mid-20th century that has now resulted in more Maltese (first/second/third generation) citizens living in Australia, actually outnumbering the 0.5 million population living in the Maltese archipelago. Both nations also seem to be performing at a similar pace in relation to SDG performance, with Australia being indexed at 42/166 with a 75.9% index score and Malta following closely with an index rank of 41/166 and a 75.5% index score as indicated in the Sustainable Development Report 2023 (Sachs et al., 2023). Various measures of the 2023 Budget in Malta were integrated with the SDGs, spread across various sectors, whilst building on previous years’ initiatives aimed at further reducing the risk of poverty for the most vulnerable in society and addressing past injustices. Consequently, 7.7% and 6.1% of the national budget were allocated to SDG 1 and SDG 4 respectively (Ministry for the Environment, Energy & Enterprise, 2023). While both Malta and Australia have reported progress in SDG 1, significant challenges remain, especially in the latter nation. Malta is faring well in SDG 4, mainly in the increase in net primary enrolment rate and lower secondary completion rate, with a slight stagnation in pre-primary organized learning. While challenges in Australia remain due to the decrease in pre-primary organized learning, the other two indicators of primary enrolment and lower secondary completion have been achieved, albeit having stagnated at present (Sachs et al., 2023). As previously discussed, education systems across the globe are very contextual, despite the global neoliberal influences, therefore the above brief implementation monitoring descriptors of SDG 1 and SDG 4 are not meant to act as a comparative exercise but to show that Malta (an island state) and Australia (a continent) are both facing challenges in maintaining schooling systems that are socially just, equitable, and inclusive.

Overview of the Book

The first chapter sets the context for the rest of the book that problematizes various aspects of social justice, equity, and inclusion through particular lenses, and/or methodologies. This is done by presenting the ‘problem’ of social justice and equity in education, while simultaneously making links with the SDGs. Chapter 2 presents a problematization of the social justice concept within education as presented in the literature, while setting out to critique this concept as an educational goal, as well as the role educational leadership is expected to play in the promotion of equity and social justice discourses through the lens of Actor-Network Theory (ANT). ANT offers concepts that trace the dynamics of educational reform, in this case, schooling for social justice and equity, including the emergence of actors within the play of heterogeneous linkages among humans and non-humans, and how these actors are performed into being by these connections. Chapter 3 concentrates on equity in the Maltese education system, with a particular focus on how the policyscape makes provision for achieving, improving, and maintaining equity in compulsory schooling. As an EU member state, Malta has been affected by the evolution, causes, and consequences of social, educational, and economic inequalities that have been an ardently contentious and controversial issue given the recent economic crisis in Europe. Bacchi’s ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ (WPR) approach is adopted to analyse national school inclusion policy in Malta as illustrative of policies mobilized to address the problem of inequality, therefore acknowledging the need for a provision of equity as a major agenda. In Chapter 4, Niesche draws on a research project designed to embed Indigenous perspectives in schools and classrooms as an example of socially just leadership practices in New South Wales, Australia. Community members were recruited to work with teachers as co-constructors of learning activities that explicitly value and work with Indigenous perspectives to go beyond simple behaviour assistance that has historically been a feature of such roles. The practices of community members, teachers, and principals are theorized using the notion of culturally responsive leadership. Chapters 1 to 4 also provide further resources for engagement in terms of reflective questions and annotated lists for further reading. In Chapter 5, Bogotch provides a commentary of the preceding chapters, further subjecting the concepts of social justice, equity, and inclusion in education to skepticism, critique, and problematization. Bogotch is provocative, raising questions for the reader, thus opening up a dialogue on how schooling at large, and educational leadership and policy in particular, are meant to ‘solve’ the social (in)justice, (in)equity, and (non)inclusion present in society.

Reflective Questions

What do you understand by the terms ‘social justice’ and ‘equity’ broadly and in relation to schooling more specifically?
To what extent is a socially just educational system possible in an unjust society?
Do educational policies act as change agents or reproducers of social structures?
What are the barriers to enacting social justice in practice in classrooms and schools?
How have SDG 1 and SDG 4 contributed to more socially just, equitable and inclusive schooling?

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Book Chapters

Prelims

1. Social Justice and Equity in Education and Schooling

2. Schooling and Educational Leadership as the Main Protagonists in the Social Justice Script? Unveiling the Social Justice Discourses from an Actor-Network Theory Lens

3. Problematizing Equity in Educational Policy: An Application of Bacchi's Post-structural Analytical Approach

4. Culturally Responsive Leadership: A Case Study of Improving Relations Between Indigenous Communities and Schools

5. Concluding Commentary

About the Authors

Index