Special Interest Group
This SIG promotes dialogue on educational policies and practices at all levels in terms of supporting or inhibiting social justice. We are committed to developing a range of theoretical understandings of the concept of social justice and the interaction of particular axes of discrimination in education. Particular attention is given to discourses and material effects of social class, gender, citizenship and human rights, and the ways in which these interrelate. In addition we help to develop an understanding of the opportunities and spaces that social actors in education have to promote inclusion and social justice (as well as the limits and constraints they face), and the ways in which action can be taken.
We contribute to the evaluation of research methodologies for investigating social justice. We consider the processes by which academic critique can or should influence political agendas locally, nationally and globally. Fundamentally, we provide an arena for debate, discussion and dissemination for researchers whose work addresses a wide range of social justice issues. Thus, the SIG’s intention is to bring together research from a range of specialist yet related areas to a general forum to further social justice in education. SIG events Past activities have included:
Reader in Interdisciplinary Practice and Research with Families at Birmingham City University
Carolyn is a Reader in Interdisciplinary Practice and Research with Families in the Centre for the Study of Practice and Culture in Education at Birmingham City University. She is also a Churchill Fellow, a Visiting Fellow at the University of...
Lecturer at Bishop Grosseteste University
Sheine Peart is a reader in access, equality and inclusion and is programme leader for the doctor of education. Her research interests include social justice and inclusion; and developing educators and trainees to work with diverse...
The Covid-19 pandemic has given new currency to the idea of resilience, in terms of adapting to and recovering from adversity. However, in recent years the discourse of resilience has become...
Continue readingIn December 2020, the Westminster government promised to set up an expert group to consider solutions to the huge variability of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on pupils’ educational...
Continue readingThe north-east of England is one of the toughest places in the country for young people to gain employment (Carter, 2012). Young people from the region are more likely to drop out of education at...
Continue readingThe strains on the education system caused by the Covid-19 pandemic have forced many parents to have to contend with significant changes in their daily routines. A study of seven countries in...
Continue readingSince the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, children across the world have experienced significant changes to their lives. Save the Children (2020, p. 4) report that an estimated 99 per cent of...
Continue readingResearch Intelligence issue 146: Contemporary issues in mental health and wellbeing in education
At the beginning of January the prime minister claimed that reopening schools was safe and that the benefits of children being in school were ‘huge’ (BBC News, 2021). While educational...
Continue readingOn February 17 2021, Anne Longfield OBE gave her final speech as the children’s commissioner for England. Her words were a clarion cry for the UK’s children, who for the past 12 months have...
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