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

Abstract

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.

Keywords:

• neoliberalism
• rural education
• social justice
• teacher education

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the collaboration of all the teachers who took part in this research. I am deeply grateful to them. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the two anonymous reviewers of this paper for the helpful comments.

Notes

1. I considered adding pseudonyms to teachers' comments but I believe, in this paper, adding ‘Laura argues … ’ or ‘Fred states … ’ makes the text cumbersome. If there was a continuous narrative of two or three teachers it would be useful but given there are many voices in this paper it crowds the text and does not add any clarity to it.