Nailing jello to the wall: articulating conceptualizations of social justice¹

1. Versions of this article were presented by the researcher at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting, April 12–16, 2004, San Diego, California, USA and the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand (TEFANZ) Conference, July 5–7, 2004, Auckland, New Zealand.

Abstract

This article presents conceptualizations of social justice expressed by a group of teacher educators in New Zealand and seeks to reinforce the importance of placing social justice on the agenda of teacher education. It is presented in the form of a reader's theater script designed to elicit discussion and encourage others to reflect critically on their own conceptualizations of social justice. The script is a product of doctoral thesis research, influenced by poststructural theory, which used individual interviews and group discussions to examine participant conceptualizations of social justice in teacher education contexts. The presentation of the reader's theater script is followed by discussion of the range of discourses that the participants drew upon in their accounts of social justice and consideration of some of the effects of a discourse of responsibility. We invite educators to conduct multiple readings of the script or produce their own scripts with their colleagues and students as a means to trouble the often taken‐for‐granted underpinnings of conceptualizations of social justice in teacher education contexts.

Keywords:

• Teacher education
• Social justice
• Discourse
• Reader's theater

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge the critical comments from three anonymous reviewers who assisted us in clarifying our discussion.

Notes

1. Versions of this article were presented by the researcher at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA) meeting, April 12–16, 2004, San Diego, California, USA and the Teacher Education Forum of Aotearoa New Zealand (TEFANZ) Conference, July 5–7, 2004, Auckland, New Zealand.

2. After careful discussion and debate, all of the research participants chose to be named. Please see thesis for further detail.

3. Script should be read in its entirety. Square brackets [ ] indicate words or phrases inserted into verbatim transcripts to enhance intelligibility and should be read during performance of script.

4. A discussion of social justice in the New Zealand context would be incomplete without reference to the Treaty of Waitangi. It is an agreement between Maori, the indigenous peoples of New Zealand, and the British Crown signed in 1840. ‘The significance of the Treaty lay in the unique relationship it proposed between Maori and the Crown—a relationship based on Crown obligations to protect rangatiratanga rights [sovereignty] in exchange for Crown rights to occupancy and governance’ (Fleras & Spoonley, 1999, p. 9).

5. Please see description of discourse analysis in the section ‘Framing the doctoral research project’ for discussion on identification of discourses.