Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice in Education: A Critical Exploration of the Sustainable Development Goals

295 Pages·2023·5.774 MB·English

by  Sara Weuffen, Jenene Burke, Margaret Plunkett, Anitra Goriss-Hunter, Susan Emmett

SDG: 4
Quality Education
Sara Weuffen · Jenene Burke ·
Margaret Plunkett · Anitra Goriss-Hunter ·
Susan Emmett   Editors
Inclusion, Equity,
Diversity, and
Social Justice in
Education
A Critical Exploration of the Sustainable
Development Goals
Sustainable Development Goals Series
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Sara Weuffen (cid:129) Jenene Burke (cid:129)
Margaret Plunkett (cid:129)
Anitra Goriss-Hunter (cid:129)
Susan Emmett
Editors
Inclusion, Equity,
Diversity, and Social
Justice in Education
A Critical Exploration
of the Sustainable Development
Goals
123
Editors
SaraWeuffen JeneneBurke
Institute of Education, Arts Institute of Education, Arts
andCommunity andCommunity
Ballarat, VIC,Australia Ballarat, VIC,Australia
Margaret Plunkett Anitra Goriss-Hunter
Institute of Education, Arts Institute of Education, Arts
andCommunity andCommunity
Ballarat, VIC,Australia Ballarat, VIC,Australia
SusanEmmett
Institute of Education, Arts
andCommunity
Ballarat, VIC,Australia
ISSN 2523-3084 ISSN 2523-3092 (electronic)
Sustainable Development GoalsSeries
ISBN978-981-19-5007-0 ISBN978-981-19-5008-7 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-5008-7
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Foreword
This book is a particularly important collection because in each of the
chapter, authors remind us, in different ways, that the onus should be on all
educators to acknowledge, recognise, respect, and engage with the diversity
of students and the knowledge and cultures that they bring to educational
contexts. I cannot overemphasise this point because narrow, neo-liberal
concerns with testing, accountability, and standards have pervaded educa-
tional governance and policy for the past 30 years and steadily displaced
professional concerns that were gradually being asserted by educators in the
previous decades. The most important of these was an emerging ethos of
equityandsocialresponsibilityinschools,whichrequirededucatorstoknow
their students, understand where they were coming from, and to move to
meet them by being willing to negotiate the curriculum and pedagogy to
make learning more relevant to their everyday lives and experiences. This
kind ofprofessionalattitudehas beendisplaced bya much more impersonal
ethos ofcompetition andperformativity atalllevels ofeducation.Theresult
is that there is now little place for understanding and accommodating the
social, cultural, and experiential worlds of diverse young people. The hard-
ening of the educational policy regime and of educational attitudes in vir-
tually all countries (especially the English-speaking ones) has meant that,
instead of schools accommodating and celebrating the diversity of students,
both the competitive market arrangements and the heavy accountability
regimes of mandatory standardised testing force many educators to comply
withimpersonalandremotestandards.Studentsandteachersareexpectedto
turn themselves into the kinds of people demanded by ostensibly high per-
forming schools that excel in high-stakes tests. This book challenges such
logic. In doing so, the authors as a group are deliberately responding to the
UnitedNationsSustainableDevelopmentGoals,particularlyGoal4(Quality
Education) which emphasises the importance of inclusive and equitable
education.
Weknowfromdecadesofresearchthatschoolsdonotnecessarilyworkto
the advantage of all young people. To be sure, some students are highly
motivated and culturally disposed to acquire the scores and grades that will
ensure their future educational and life chances. For them, the expected
trajectory is that they will be educationally successful. But such is not the
case for less-advantaged children. For them, even deciding to make a real
efforttobesuccessfulatschoolisproblematicbecausetheyandtheirfamilies
andcommunitiesarelikelytolacktheparticularsocialandculturalresources
v
vi Foreword
and supports that are generally available to more advantaged families. This
makes the reproduction of disadvantage especially likely, which is why it is
critically important for teachers to do everything they can to engage such
students—to understand them, their histories, and their communities and to
make sure that they have a personal connection with teachers and a stake in
whattheeducationalsettingisperceivedtooffer.Studentsneedtoknowthat,
whiletheyaretryingtounderstandandbelong,theteachersarereachingout
andtryingtounderstandthemratherthansimplyexpectingthemtoadjustto
entrenched, normalised school, and teacher paradigms. Students need to
recognise that attempts are being made to engage them in relevant and
interesting school experiences in which they are able to recognise their own
community,values,cultures,andknowledge.Suchanapproachtoeducation,
asthecontributorstothisbookmakeclear,is,ofcourse,alwaysdifficult,and
italwaysinvolvestensionsandcontradictions.Nonetheless,therealstrength
of the book is that the authors provide encouraging examples of good,
inclusive education that can be achieved in diverse contexts.
The critically important point being made in the book is that if we are
serious about the authentic engagement and learning of less-advantaged and
marginalised students, we must advocate for education that is inclusive
of their lives, social circumstances, and hopes. This book interrogates
embedded taken-for-granted assumptions about the presumed neutrality of
mainstream education and provides insights into the ways in which notions
of individualism, competition, and performance in standardised tests have
enabled school failure to be represented as the responsibility of individual
students, their schools, their parents, and their communities. The logic of
such discourse is one of deficit. It assumes that marginalised people should
be willing to take individual and community responsibility for fixing their
supposed dysfunctions by becoming more like the white, middle-class
mainstream. In such ways, the marginalised are pathologised. Too often
overlooked are the sociopolitical, cultural, and economic factors that con-
tribute to educational performance. The result is that the students who most
need support are more likely to be disillusioned, ignored, and even deni-
gratedbytheeducationsystem.It’ssmallwondermanyofthemrespondwith
hostilityandrejectionofschooling.Themessageofhopeinthisbookisthat
all this can be changed.
The editors and contributing authors in large part model and embed
principlesofinclusivityintothebookitself.Thereisarangeofauthorsfrom
a range of educational backgrounds—university academics, school teachers,
parent–educators, early childhood educators, educators with disabilities,
Indigenous educators, and members of particular equity groups and
minorities. The process of constructing the book has required expensive
collaboration,modelling,andmentoring.Likewise,withinanoverallconcern
for notions of inclusivity, the topics covered are illustrative of diversity and
range from an investigation of the effects of COVID-19 on education, to an
analysis of children’s rights in India, to the perspectives of teachers with
disabilities. Such real-world examples of struggle for social justice and
inclusioninanumberofnationalcontextsprovidefascinatingaccountsofthe
micropolitics of education formation and community engagement. A focus
Foreword vii
on power relationships, identity, culture, and contested interests illuminates
therelationshipsbetweeneducationandothersocialcontextsthatbeardown
heavilyonmarginalisedpeoples.Theresultisthatreaderscanunderstandthe
complexitiesanddynamicsofeducationalsuccessandfailureandmaybegin
to see ways forward for bringing about greater educational inclusion and
social justice.
Lawrence Angus
Adjunct Professor, Institute of Education
Arts and Community
Federation University
Ballarat, Australia
Acknowledgements
The editors acknowledge the Wadawurrung, Wurundjeri, and Gunai Kurnai
people asthesovereignTraditional Owners andCustodians ofthelands and
waters upon whichthis volumehasbeenconceptualised andcompiled. As a
collection, the authors acknowledge the Traditional Owners and Custodians
of the lands and waters upon which each piece of scholarship has been
produced.Giventheinternational scope andsocialjustice lens ofthis edited
volume, we respect and uphold a commitment to supporting and advancing
thehumanandsovereignrightsofFirstNationscommunitiesinspecificand
mainstreameducationspaces.Werecognisethenuanced educationpractices
tied inextricably to sociocultural practices within First Nations communities
and act as allies to participate, and continue, the perpetual practices of
learningandteachingthathavetakenplaceonsovereignlandsforcenturies.
Theeditorswishtothankallwhowereinvolvedintheproductionofthis
volume, particularly the authors who contributed chapters, Prof. Lawrence
AngusforwritingtheForeword,GraceMafromSpringer,andthecolleagues
who generously acted as peer reviewers.
This edited book was conceived and executed as a project by the Social
Justice, Inclusion and Diversity in Education (SJIDE) research focus area in
the Institute of Education, Arts and Community at Federation University
Australia. SJIDE members undertake research and scholarly engagement
with social justice in education within the broad themes of equity, diversity,
inclusion, opportunity, regionality, and well-being in formal education as
well as non-formal education settings.
The editors take great satisfaction in bringing this project to fruition and
look forward to the conversations and changes in practice that may result.
ix
Contents
1 Inclusion, Equity, Diversity, and Social Justice
in Education in the Twenty-First Century... .... ..... .... 1
Anitra Goriss-Hunter, Jenene Burke, Sara Weuffen,
Margaret Plunkett, and Susan Emmett
Part I Interrogating Perspectives of Diversity and Inclusion
2 Policy, Discourse and Epistemology in Inclusive
Education.... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 13
Jenene Burke, Anitra Goriss-Hunter, and Susan Emmett
3 TheWickedProblemofSocialEquityinHigherEducation:
The Conflicting Discourses and the Impact of COVID-19 ... 29
Ana Larsen and Susan Emmett
4 Issues and Solutions: A Literature Review of the Deficit
Discourses Concerning Under-Represented Students ... .... 43
Ana Larsen and Liam Frost-Camilleri
5 Learning Through an Undisciplined Lens: The Centring
of Indigenous Knowledges and Philosophies in Higher
Education in Australia and Sweden.... .... .... ..... .... 57
Jillian K Marsh, Sheelagh Daniels-Mayes,
Kristina Sehlin MacNeil, and Melissa Nursey-Bray
6 Insights into the Education System in India and
the Current Impact of COVID-19 on Child Rights..... .... 77
Anjali Rana and Rachel Daniel
7 TheFallacyofCulturalInclusioninMainstreamEducation
Discourses.... .... ..... .... .... .... .... .... ..... .... 91
Sara Weuffen and Kym Willis
Part II Foregrounding Diverse Voices and Inclusive Practices
8 APossibleMe?InspiringLearningAmongRegionalYoung
People for the Future World of Work.. .... .... ..... .... 109
Cheryl Glowrey, Stuart Levy, Monica Green, Anna Fletcher,
and Margaret Plunkett
xi