BSc Education

The course unit will involve detailed study of the concept of social justice (including relational approaches) and explore their relevance to diverse educational contexts, locally, nationally and globally. It will consider social justice in relation  to poverty, power and place drawing on research from MIE and globally.

As described above, the focus, whilst understanding intersectionality, remains on poverty and place. We have drawn on research within MIE and globally to exemplify this.

This course unit aims to develop students’ knowledge and understanding of ways in which to social justice in education have been understood and applied  by exploring examples of policy and practice in a range of local, national and international contexts. Key issues will be explored in sufficient detail to allow students to gain knowledge of specific historical, social and cultural contexts which give rise to educational inequalities and issues of injustice.

The course unit are delivered in a sequence of ten sessions built around two-hour lecture /workshops with additional two tutorial/seminar sessions reviewing the learning and preparing students for the assessment activities.  Workshops introduce and explore social justice policies and programmes using interactive elements throughout. These include digital resources, such as video and online websites that provide students opportunities to examine and analyse understandings of social justice in education and how it is implemented individually and in groups. Other workshop sessions focus on students engaging in group work using synchronous digital tools to help them identify, compare and evaluate social justice approaches approaches as a means to help develop their knowledge and skills in preparation for summative assessment activities.   
The tutorial/seminar sessions will focus particularly on preparing students for the summative assessment activities by viewing, analysing and evaluating success criteria associated with the assessment activities. There are also opportunities to independently and in pairs analyse, evaluate and mark past submissions using success criteria linked to each assessment task.
 

• Identify and understand how social justice has been constructed and applied in education  Identify how power and ideology shape social justice practice in place
• Identify the way in which social beliefs and values influence policy and the process of education.
• Explain impact of the issues listed above on the experiences of individual pupils
• Explain how schools and other educational settings can respond effectively through policy and practice to these and other issues.

• Apply reasoning and analytical skills to illuminate the contributing factors to issues of social injustice in education relating to a variety of political,historical and economic contexts.
• Use theory and knowledge to question the legitimacy and limitations of claims made regarding inequality and education.
• Review educational practices globally, nationally and locally in the light of emerging understandings of equity and diversity.

• Evaluate the issues raised and their relation to a variety of educational settings, and consider the implications for future study and career options.
• Contribute to debates about the challenges to social justice  within education systems globally;
• Access and evaluate data regarding inequalities in education globally using digital tools and resources.

• use digital evidence to solve problems relating to social justice in education
• Use digital communication tools to construct an argument regarding social justice in education

Feedback will be available via Turnitin

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Ball, S. (2003) Class strategies and the education market: the middle classes and social advantage. London: Routledge Falmer

Chitty, C. (2004) Education policy in Britain. 2nd Edition. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Francis, B., Mills, M., & Lupton, R. (2017). Towards social justice in education: Contradictions and dilemmas. Journal of Education Policy, 32(4), 414-431.

Freire, P. (2021). Pedagogy of hope: Reliving pedagogy of the oppressed. Bloomsbury Publishing

Giroux, H. A. (2010). Rethinking education as the practice of freedom: Paulo Freire and the promise of critical pedagogy. Policy Futures in Education, 8(6), 715-721.

Gorski, P. C. (2012). Perceiving the problem of poverty and schooling: Deconstructing the class stereotypes that mis-shape education practice and policy. Equity & Excellence in Education, 45(2), 302-319.

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Payne, R. K. (1998/2005). A Framework for understanding poverty (4th ed.). Highlands, TX: RFT Publishing

Raffo, C., Dyson, A., Gunter, H., Hall, D., Jones, L. & Kalambouka A. (2007) Education and Poverty: A critical review of theory, policy and practice.  York: Joseph Rowntree Foundation

Raffo, C. (2014) Improving Educational Equity in Urban Contexts. London:Routledge

Raffo, C., Dyson, A., Gunter, H., Hall, D., Jones, L. & Kalambouka, A. (2010) (Eds) Education and Poverty in Affluent Countries. London: Routledge.

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Wilkinson, R. & Pickett, K. (2009) The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better

Willis, P. (1977) Learning to Labour: How working class kids get working class jobs. Aldershot: Gower