Social justice and race critical education research

‘Consider, for example, educators’ and educational researchers’ concerns with assimilation, civilization, vocational training, IQ, poverty, cultural difference, remedial education, school readiness, achievement gaps, accountability, and standardization – all of these conversations were and still are intimately connected to race and racism regardless of whether we name them as such’ (Brayboy, Castagno, & Maughan, 2007, p. 159).

The roll-out of national testing in Australia, and the subsequent yearly discussions of educational achievements, has contributed to reigniting concerns regarding the presence and effects of race in education. In part, this is because comparisons based on the results of these tests, for example, between Indigenous Australian and non-Indigenous Australian students (Ford, 2013), or LBOTE (language background other than English) and non-LBOTE students (Creagh, 2014), invite critique regarding the pervasive and pernicious ongoing impact of racism on the engagement and experiences of learners in schools (Lingard, Creagh, & Vass, 2012; Sarra, 2011; Walton, Priest, & Paradies, 2013). The growing impact and pressure associated with standardised and often ‘high-stakes’ testing, coupled with heightened concern about race and racism in education, is also a significant issue in settings such as the USA and UK, as indicated in the quote that opens this editorial.

There is no denying that statistics regarding achievement, attendance and retention benchmarks provide powerful and compelling points of focus for much of the work that seeks to investigate and address the reproduction of inequalities (and privilege) in the schooling experiences and outcomes of particular groups, such as those located within racialised identity categories. However, more complex examination of racialised inequities in educational settings is increasingly being pursued by race critical researchers (Essed & Goldberg, 2002). In the introduction to an edited volume that makes a recent noteworthy contribution to this area, Dixson (2014, p. xvii) describes this as the ‘next step’ towards addressing ‘how race, racism, and educational policy and practice converge’. The ‘how’ is significant here, as it draws attention to the active ‘doing’ of schooling that produces inequitable outcomes. It is this cutting edge line of research that CSE has contributed to opening up, as is illustrated by the collection bought together in this Virtual Edition, titled Social justice and race critical education research.

It is perhaps unsurprising that CSE has long been a location that welcomes efforts to address concerns about the effects of race and racism in education. CSE is committed to advocating for, and showcasing examples of, the latest scholarly work that offers critical engagements in the sociology of education. The underlying interests of CSE frame this focus: the journal publishes research that questions and challenges institutional arrangements and schooling practices that sustain inequities in the experiences and achievements of the ‘least advantaged’ learners. In this sense, CSE can be described as championing educational change that prioritises the interests of the least advantaged by addressing inequitable arrangements in terms of policy, pedagogy and curriculum. Social justice in relation to education, then, is a central thread that runs throughout the history of the journal, and concerns with the experiences of those that are racially marginalised and excluded in connection with education are a particular point of focus that has been present – if not growing in significance – since the 1970s.¹

This Virtual Edition of CSE will revisit articles from across this 40-year period, drawing attention to the work of critical scholars that have sought to develop deeper understandings of the systemic circumstances and discursive practices that explain the longevity of racial inequities, or who have presented educational strategies and practices that may open up pathways of change that meaningfully address these inequities. It is worth noting that across this period, a significant and influential force and point of concern that many CSE contributors touch upon was recently described by Connell (2013) as the ‘neoliberal cascade’. In part this has entailed the commodification of the education sector, creating conditions that systemically rely on there being ‘losers’ and ‘winners’ in a market and human capital driven logic of educational competition. The articles brought together here have been selected because they also help to illustrate the theoretical and methodological movements that have responded to, and engaged with, the growing and active influences of neoliberalism in schooling. In a somewhat understated comment, Smyth and McInerney (2014, p. 22) note that ‘[t]he manifest failure of neoliberal education policies to lift school retention rates, reduce educational inequality and improve employment prospects for young people in disadvantaged circumstances is particularly disturbing’. The concern here is that, more than simply reproducing inequities, schooling creates ‘inequalities and the hierarchical categorization and ordering of students’ (Youdell, 2011, p. 14). A telling concern that the collection helps to reveal then, is that the research community is yet to meaningfully account for ‘difference’, or more pertinently, for Derrida’s concerns about identity remaining problematically attached to différance – the ‘production of differences and the differences between differences’ (Derrida, 2004 [1968], p. 120).

A useful starting point for the issue can be found within the socio-historical context of multicultural debates during the 1970s. H.E.R. Townsend’s (1976) article reminds us that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The paper laments that the ‘majority of educational tests in use in Australia have been standardized on a population mainly of Anglo-Saxon descent, and such tests can be quite unwittingly discriminatory against the migrant population’ (p. 29). In the intervening years, such arguments have expanded to acknowledge that discrimination extends to include groups such as Indigenous Australians, students from low SES backgrounds and geographically marginalised students. However, it remains a revealing comment in view of the rise of national literacy and numeracy testing, and the recent criticisms of this from scholars such as Thompson (2013), Klenowski (2014), Angelo (2013), Ford (2013) and Creagh (2014) that echo these very sentiments. Townsend goes on to connect these concerns with the presence and influence of deficit perspectives that, in part, arise from disparities in achievements on standardised tests and often lead to the emergence of compensatory programmes designed to target and bolster the language proficiency of students (p. 30). For Townsend, this foregrounds his central social justice focus: the expectation that schooling in Australia works more meaningfully towards upholding its commitments as a signatory to UN conventions that include supporting ‘the maintenance of home culture through schooling’ (p. 34). Underpinning his critique are concerns with the failure of mainstream schooling to work with, value and respect, and to allow to prosper the cultural diversity that was already visible in 1970s Australia, alongside the associated assimilationist undercurrents that frame and influence judgments of ‘success’ in schooling. Townsend concludes the paper with suggestions for systemic changes that will also be recognisable to many: equity of outcomes as opposed to simplistic equality of opportunity, the central importance and influence of language, curriculum and pedagogy that is more culturally responsive (and perhaps even wide-spread bilingual programs), and addressing race privileges and discrimination more effectively.

Writing nearly two decades later, Fazal Rizvi (1997) begins his article by offering a personal anecdote that evocatively draws attention to the ongoing influences of racialised thinking and social practices in schooling for young learners. This story segues into his broader focus for the paper, which is the paucity of attention given to how those in educational leadership ‘approach issues of ethnic “difference”, and the ways in which their own ethnic identification impacts on their work’ (p. 92). On this topic, he elaborates that, at their core, schooling structures, systems, policies and practices work toward sustaining a de-racialised hierarchy that is unwilling and unable to account for issues linked with the homogeneity of the sector. Hence, working with, respecting and valuing those that do not come from the racially or culturally dominant group, and who remain discriminated against, are in some respects urgently needed features of schooling arrangements. Importantly, he extends this line of thinking with the critical observation that many of those involved in education seem largely oblivious to the idea that ‘difference’ plays a major role within schooling: ‘Difference is not an external variable. Rather, it is constructed through the practices of schooling’ (p. 96). This is a significant contribution that reminds us that schooling is not static, but rather schools are socially dynamic settings in which the importance of understanding the relational cannot be over-stated. In other words, ‘differences’ between people and groups are relationally re-made in and through discursive exchanges, curricular representations and school policies. Moreover, schooling actively contributes to (re)making the ‘difference’ as meaningful in the lives of young people, reproducing patterns of inclusive and exclusive group membership linked with power, privilege and opportunity. What is needed, according to Rizvi (p. 99), is a flattening out of authority frameworks in schooling with movement towards more genuinely democratic structures, systems, policies and practices. The administration of schooling, which remains far from being ‘neutral’ in regard to ‘difference’, must be centrally involved in this process, and the starting point for this work entails asking some confronting and challenging self-reflective questions.

Nearly a decade later, Peter McInerney (2005) directed his attention towards concerns with school administration. However, in this case, it is the circumstances in which schools are required to operate that are brought into analytical focus. This paper is a salutary reminder of the deleterious effects arising from neoliberal policy and curriculum reforms, particularly when considering the schooling experiences and opportunities of Indigenous Australian students and communities. The focus of McInerney’s concerns are changes that have contributed to creating contradictory conditions that, on the one hand, appear to increase school autonomy, while, on the other, have imposed heightened top-down scrutiny and punitive accountabilities for principals and teachers. McInerney centres his discussion on the school level response at ‘Kangaroo Flat’, a rural South Australian learning community that underwent changes following devolution that saw the school systematically move further away from what appeared to be constructive and helpful practices that were responding to the needs of many Indigenous members of the school community. McInerney makes the point that the ‘notion of the stand-alone school is untenable’ (2005, p. 29); instead, what is needed is a socially just bureaucracy that actively works in support of schools that are self-managed and locally responsive. Nearly 10 years on, the concerns McInerney raised appear to have gone largely unheeded, as increasing marketisation of the education sector has further eroded the capacity of many learning communities to put into action policies and practices that meet the needs of Indigenous students.

Developing a contextualised understanding of social justice in schooling, Amanda Keddie’s (2012) article reviews the work of American political philosopher, Nancy Fraser. Drawing from Fraser to stress that injustice can occur in economic, cultural and political spheres – with each of these understood as being connected to each other – Keddie examines some of the problematics of pursuing only distributive or recognitive or representative forms of justice. Fraser is mobilised here not so much as a model of social justice that is ‘static and uncomplicated but rather as a productive lens for thinking about and addressing some of the key ways in which different dimensions of injustice are currently hindering the schooling participation, engagement and outcomes of marginisalised students’ (p. 276). Along with an insightful account of the stickiness of group identity and the problematics of group reification, the value of Keddie’s paper lies in the way it incites readers to rethink the kind of ideas they hold around social justice, and the possible effects our well-meaning reforms and practices may actually have. Key examples and insights are offered in terms of schooling Indigenous Australian students and compelling illustrations of the way social justice is or is not enacted in places of learning are provided.

Drawing on data from over 25 multi-sited ethnographies, and informed by close to 40 years of thinking critically about education, John Smyth (2012) provides not so much a formulae or model for the socially just school, but rather reveals key ‘impressions and fragments’ (p. 12) gained through his research and experiences. Asserting that ‘the neoliberal project’ has been discredited and destabilised as a consequence of the global financial crisis (p. 9), he argues that now is the time to implement a ‘very different educational imagination’ – one with equity at its core (p. 11). Indeed, it may be the ‘best opportunity we have had in several decades to pursue the notion of the socially just school as an alternative’ (p. 9). Noting the devastating costs of marketisation and standards-based and accountability-driven reforms in schools over the last few decades, and the exacerbation of inequalities in Australia and elsewhere, Smyth calls for a nuanced approach to schools put at a disadvantage by the system, and a renewed look at the complexities of school and community cultures in contexts of poverty. Listening and responding to schools and communities who have in the past been ‘excluded, silenced, marginalized and ridden over’ (p. 11), and fostering meaningful connections with them, should be the key driver behind schooling in Smyth’s view. He takes the reader through what he sees as a range of features common to the socially just school, including a range of community-oriented, philosophical, political and pedagogical goals. The factors that inhibit schools from achieving these goals are also articulated, and the article ends with a discussion of clear ideals that leaders with socially just vision should ‘courageously stand-up for’ (p. 16), especially in the face of powerful and seemingly inescapable neoliberal agendas. That poverty and disadvantage are not only about material deprivation, but also about power and relationships, is one of the most salient points made in this paper with impassioned and realistic goals.

While CSE has a long history of drawing attention to the deleterious effects of race and racism in schooling, Smyth’s (2012) article gestures towards work that is opening up conversations and encouraging new kinds of social justice practices. Another such example, framed by the 2008 ‘Bradley’ Review of Australian Higher Education and attention to indicators of access and participation, is provided by Margaret Sommerville’s (2013) investigation of the career and further education aspirations of children and families from the culturally diverse Blacktown community in Western Sydney. While not explicitly engaging with race, her discussion does highlight the intersections of race with low socio-economic status (SES) and geography: the Blacktown region is growing fast courtesy of the new immigrants settling there (from over 170 countries and 100 languages present) and it is also home to the ‘largest single community of Aboriginal Australians’ (p. 222). This paper shows a marked difference that occurs around Year 5 between students from low SES schools and students from high SES schools in regard to aspirations for higher education. Somerville mobilises a range of theories (predominantly place-based) and methodologies (qualitative and art-based) to consider the complex and multi-layered workings of ‘aspiration’, which are ‘shaped over time’ and include ‘the histories of individuals, families, and communities, in particular, local places, and a focus on changing geographies over time’ (p. 234). The analysis reveals the complexities of the community members everyday realities of ‘placetimematterings’ or, in other words, the specific geographical, spatial, temporal, embodied and material dimensions of their lives. Bound by a real concern with the material conditions of life lived on the poverty line, and of genuine threats to children of becoming disengaged from social and educational opportunities, Somerville explores the mothers’ aspirations of future well-being for their children and their perceptions of present day realities.

Also illustrative of recent efforts to open up innovative and provocative lines of debate in race critical education research, Cheryl Matias and Michalinos Zembylas (2014) turn their attention to the racialisation of emotions such as disgust, pity and (false) love/empathy by pre-service teachers. In a context such as education, where there is an awareness that making overt public racialised expressions can result in sanctions and consequences (i.e. a fear of being viewed and treated as racist), these authors delve into the complex responses of pre-service teachers. They explore how and why pre-service teachers cultivate and learn to express anti-racist rhetoric that remains largely devoid of the much needed critical self-reflection that may lead to more genuine and constructive action. Matias and Zembylas offer a valuable insight into the challenges of teacher education, where a cohort that remains predominantly White is resistant to rethinking racism, racialised assumptions or White supremacy because ‘it is emotionally discomforting’, and hence many graduates remain unlikely to acquire the skills, knowledge or resilience to meaningfully invest in, and sustain, anti-racist education (p. 328). In moving this debate forward, they proffer that the key challenge is to ask: ‘[H]ow do you help someone realize they aren’t truly committing to a cause, if they refuse to admit that they are not emotionally committed in the first place?’ (p. 332). In partial answer to this, they point towards the development of strategic empathy in and through pedagogies of discomfort (p. 333). Such an approach may assist the sort of ‘critical interrogation’ required of initial teacher education as it constructs a pathway towards genuinely taking up anti-racist practices that are emotionally congruent with the social justice aspirations that many pre-service teachers espouse.

The changing population demographics of regional Australia have also drawn the attention of researchers concerned with other racially ‘different’ groups. Kathryn Edgeworth (2015) interviewed Sudanese refugees and (White) Australian girls from the same regional New South Wales school, taking up the recent spatial turn in social theory by investigating concerns about what it means to belong and be racialised within particular locations. Mobilising Foucauldian and Butlerian theories of power, subjectivity and the performative, critical place theory after Massey and work from feminist rural sociology, Edgeworth explores the ongoing production of difference through practices of exclusion in a specific rural (school) space. The lived experiences of the Sudanese girls in a small rural, and seemingly culturally homogenous, community uncover the social mechanisms that position them as the problematic ethnic ‘Other’ who is ‘out of place’ and never belongs. Edgeworth argues that the materiality of the girls’ racialised bodies renders them ‘at once both hyper-visible and invisible’ (p. 8), a performative that constitutes them as subjects to ‘be ignored, isolated, harassed, excluded and made invisible’ (p. 9). The Sudanese girls’ words reveal their lack of friendships outside of their own family, while the words of their peers expose discursive practices that contribute to this sense of social and cultural exclusion. In undertaking this approach, Edgeworth’s article raises concern about the power to belong being determined by the White majority within learning communities that uncritically imbue themselves with the myth of harmonious and homogenous rural Australia. In the end, the paper challenges readers to rethink how schools respond to the particularities of place, particularly in relation to social justice concerns that reveal how social practices reinscribe racialised meaning on the bodies, and in the minds and hearts, of people in rural settings.

Written for the CSE special issue, Education policy analysis for a complex world: Poststructural possibilities, Zeus Leonardo (2015) extends this line of thinking about the relational influence of discursive practices. He offers a poststructural reading of education policy that is concomitantly shaped by ideas from Critical Race Theory. Leonardo works with Charles Mill’s notion of the racial contract to raise questions about the role played by schooling to racially ‘Other’ students as part of the pre-written agreement that distinguishes this group as ‘subpersons’ from White students that ‘are already persons’ (p. 1). Leonardo presents a summation that explains why racial injustices remain prevalent in many educational settings around the world. He does this by unpacking the spatial, epistemological and cognitive ‘subcontracts’ that have worked to uphold the overarching material benefits that Whites access as a result of the ongoing dominance of the racial contract. While thought-provoking and theoretically engaging, it is the scope and scale of Leonardo’s arguments that will perhaps most challenge some readers. The central ideas put forward here are global in their reach, with the additional confronting reminder that policies and social practices that protect the racial contract saturate the fabric of key social institutions to the point of near invisibility. In focusing on education, some readers may find it unsettling to be met with the directness of the concerns raised in this paper, however, as was playfully noted years ago by Ladson-Billings (1998), it is long overdue that the ‘nice field’ of education be provoked to more meaningfully and constructively address its role in the reproduction of racialised hierarchies. The discussion in this paper provides a powerful and evocative reminder of this point, while also pointing to a way forward with Leonardo making the case for Whites to ‘sign off’ on the racial contract. In making this case, Leonardo appeals to the efforts of teachers, a group that remains importantly positioned to take on the role of epistemological traitor by taking up a ‘pedagogy of racial disruption’.

Concerns to do with race and racism persist as an ‘education dilemma’, as Leonardo and Grubb (2014) argue, with the chronological arc of this collection highlighting this point. Underpinning the contributions of the authors collected in this Virtual Issue are social justice concerns that the injurious effects of racism are powerfully felt through formal schooling, and education more broadly, in the lives of young learners and the communities in which they live. In this regard, each author has been successful in drawing attention to policies, pedagogies, curricula and assessment practices that fundamentally implicate schooling in the reproduction of racialised hierarchies. While the persistence of race and racism is made clear, the collection also reveals, importantly, that scholars remain committed to finding new ways to understand, theorise and challenge in their efforts to progress racial justice and schooling. This Virtual Edition is thus encouraging in many respects and, collectively, the articles make a strong case that more work is required to investigate and advocate for undertaking ‘pedagogic practices that unsettle race hierarchies and open up possibilities for young people who are minoritised and excluded through these race hierarchies to be recognised as legitimate students and learners’ (Youdell, 2012, p. 141).

Reading across the collection, then, the intersection of race with concerns about gender, socio-economic status, geographic location and the influences of broader political and economic ‘turns’ is unmistakable. This represents the converging forces that Lingard (2010) has described this as the ‘economisation of schooling policy’, raising concerns that the influences of neoliberalism may potentially exacerbate inequalities connected with race. A further recurrent theme underpinning the contributions is the ongoing need to find ways to account for, and address, the slipperiness of ‘difference’ itself. ‘Difference’, in all its guises, continues to have social, economic and political currency in ways that lead to its protection by practices that interrupt even the most resolute of efforts towards social justice. Commenting on this dilemma, Youdell (2011, p. 38) suggests that there remain exciting and hopeful possibilities for moving forward by thinking and working without hierarchical binaries that privilege meaning-making processes that are reliant on ‘difference from’, for example, Self/White and (racialised) Other. A starting point may be to find ways of genuinely and more meaningfully taking up Matias and Zembylas’ (2014) call regarding the importance of critical reflexive praxis as central not only to teacher education and professional development, but to race critical research itself.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. CSE pre-dates this time, being known as the Melbourne Studies in Education from 1957 to 2006. However, the 1970s marks a period of increasing, or the least a changing, cultural diversity in Australia following the formal ending of the White Australia policy and the influx of immigrants from Asia after the Vietnam War. Hence, this time can be viewed as moment where concerns to do with race and racism come into different focus within the Australian setting.