Testing the Social Justice Goals of Education

Policy documents on Indigenous education include statements such as equitable access to education, participation and outcomes that can be broadly described as social justice goals. However, there has been little academic analysis of how these goals are to be achieved. This paper proposes that the indirect discrimination provisions in Australian anti-discrimination law can provide a framework in which the goals can be evaluated against the endemic effects of dominant power on mainstream education. The legal provisions are designed to assess whether a policy or practice might adversely affect certain groups in our society distinguished by, for example, their "race". If a higher proportion of persons who do not have that particular attribute can comply with the policy or practice, and the demand is unreasonable in the circumstances, then this will constitute unlawful indirect discrimination. This paper analyses three social justice strategies which appear to be race-neutral and to apply equally to all students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous: Indigenous studies in the curriculum, using Standard English in the classroom, and instilling Australian values. The outcome suggests that these approaches may have an adverse impact on Indigenous students, and may even be undermining the social justice goals they set out to deliver

Curriculum · Economic Justice · Indigenous · Indigenous Education · Mainstream · Political science · Public relations · Social justice · Social science · Sociology · Education Systems and Policy · Gender Studies · Global Education and Multiculturalism · Law · Multilingual Education and Policy

• The International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination

  Open Access•Egon Schwelb•International and Comparative Law…•1966

  Add to list

• Special Schooling for Indigenous Students

  Open Access•Loretta De Plevitz•The Australian Journal of…•2006

  Add to list

• The Primacy of the Mother Tongue

  Open Access•Margaret Zeegers, Wayne Muir et al.•The Australian Journal of…•2003

  Add to list