This chapter examines schooling, equity and social change. The chapter begins with an exploration of different understandings about the purposes of schooling from a conservative standpoint and a more progressive perspective. Such understandings are located within an account of the history of the purposes of mass schooling in Australia. The focus is on equity as a key imperative of education where schooling is understood to be a powerful political site that can re-inscribe, but also transform, the broader injustices in the world.
The chapter provides an overview of how this imperative exists in the context of contemporary Australian classrooms and generally low levels of quality pedagogy, and how inequities can be reproduced through education policy, structures and practices. The discussion then turns to the broader context of social change and the trends in education that constrain teachers' efforts to pursue equity in schools.
Drawing on the central premise that schools can contribute to progress toward the goals of social equity, the chapter details key philosophies and knowledge to support critical and socially just pedagogy through the presentation of two vignettes of teacher practice. The chapter concludes with a consideration of how other schooling processes associated with the curriculum, the school and teacher-student relationships might better reflect social equity.
History
Chapter number
16
Pagination
536-565
ISBN-13
9781742164748
Edition
2
Language
eng
Publication classification
X Not reportable, B2.1 Book chapter in non-commercially published book
Copyright notice
2011, Rick Churchill, Peter Ferguson, Sally Godinho, Nicola F Johnson, Amanda Keddie, Will Letts, Jenny Mackay, Michele McGill, Julianne Moss, Michael C Nagel, Paul Nicholson, Melissa Vick
Extent
16
Editor/Contributor(s)
Churchill R, Ferguson P, Godinho S, Johnson NF, Keddie A, Letts W, Mackay J, McGill M, Moss J, Nagel MC, Nicholson P, Vick M