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 has worked in schools, colleges, local authorities and youth and community settings. She taught in Further Education for fifteen years teaching on various vocational programmes and working with challenging students. She held the...
On 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...
Continue readingThe coronavirus pandemic and its associated lockdowns upended our lives and presented challenges and consequences that were previously unimaginable. Teachers were flung in at the deep end with...
‘In space, race doesn’t matter, nationality doesn’t matter. In space, you see the world as a globe and you don’t see the boundaries.’ Maggie Aderin Pocock, space scientist Figure 1:...
Continue readingThe mental health and wellbeing of learners and teaching staff rank among some of the most pressing issues facing education in the coming decade. Even before the Covid-19 crisis hit, there was...
The Covid-19 pandemic has created economic and social instability for many people in Britain and around the world. As such, we might consider it an experience of ‘collective trauma’, combining...
Continue readingThe disruptive effects of the Covid-19 pandemic are borne disproportionately by already disadvantaged social groups. When all educational institutions across India shifted to online and distance...
Continue readingDisproportionality (the overrepresentation of specific social groups) in school exclusion data is well documented (DfE, 2019). Similarly, time and funding pressures faced by special educational...
Continue readingEducation and higher education have always been associated with specific ways of working and presenteeism. Teachers or lecturers needed to be in the room to teach or to attend meetings and...
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