The Discourses of Social Justice in Schools

Abstract

In this article I argue that it is possible to use and then build on contemporary theoretical and practical discourses surrounding issues of social justice in order to improve matters in schools. The research method is based in philosophical educational research: developing and generating theory in an iterative process of theorising in relation to specific practical circumstances and their problems. The argument shows that theoretical underpinnings of social justice need not be liberal‐humanist, just as practical strategies need not be couched in the language of 1980s‐style equal opportunities. It describes a method of formulating, in collaboration with practitioners, a set of theoretically informed social justice principles for managing schools. It then shows how these draw on, and contribute to, a set of discursive constructions related to social justice and its improvement.