Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor, July 2011

What is Social Justice? How does Education Provision in England contribute to Social Injustice and what might a more socially just Education system look like?
__________________________________________________________________________________ By Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor

Institution: Discipline: Year:

Roehampton University Social Justice 2011

 Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor, July 2011

Introduction

I will be focussing on the inequalities of education provision in relation to 'school choice' and key stage 'grading and testing'. Both currently create accumulative advantages and disadvantages that are powerfully influenced by the distribution of wealth (Barry, 2005). The main problem is that 'future opportunities' for children are determined before they have reached the school gate. Barrys (2005) demands of social justice can elaborate the current system of education as a 'rouse', a mere thatcherite fabrication of a meritocratic society that has structured and cultured school choices in England with an intergenerational capitalist uniform, providing the best opportunities at a price. This has created contemporary aspirations towards accumulating future opportunist advantages. Once children enter the classroom they will then experience the unnecessary burden of grading and testing, where illegitimate credentials are imposed on children, before they have even reached the age of reason (Curren, 2007).

The system of education has been poorly articulated by government behind a Vaile of personal responsibility, directly underneath the shadows of a competitive economy. I propose that contemporary education policies have misinterpreted the true essence of providing equal educational opportunities for all. A more socially just education demands that the accumulative advantages of wealth and constitutive luck of key stage testing be removed from the fabric of society, and replaced by a constitutive responsibility towards educational opportunity.

 Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor, July 2011

What is social justice?

Callously describing social justice, I will not attempt, but converse with throughout this paper; I aim to expose the cultural, social and economic human conditions that permeate educational provision. Barrys (2005) demands of social justice illuminates the distribution of educational opportunities as they stand, unequal (pg7). I am referring to Education provision in a sense of institutional variety and credentials that accumulate, allocate, and distribute educational advantage and disadvantage. Social justice deems such advantages and disadvantages justifiable but only when based on the reasoning of reducing inequality; even amongst creating inequalities to such ends (ibid, pg182).

Inequality and potential successes

Let us explore the notion of how potential success is being pre-determined before children have reached the school gate. I will not explore the obscure distributions of wealth but its impacts towards the development of childrens ability. According to Barry (2005) socioeconomic wealth creates advantages and disadvantages of potential success during the epistemological stage of physiology (ibid. p47), this is due to the fact that affordable health outcomes are for sale; this is a social injustice, as nutrition and afflictions during the mental and physical development of a foetus can influence, even determine cognitive function and IQ potential (Ibid, p49-50). So within a capitalist society potential success is already being pre-determined by socio-economic resources available to families during pregnancy (Ibid, pp49-50). Once born, according to Barry (2005), a child of 22 months will be further subjected to accumulate advantage or disadvantage within the socio-economic gap (ibid, pg, 60). For instance, at this stage a childs cultural and linguistic capital is quantified

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by its exposure, (ibid, p52-53), their intellectual capacity is subject to the lifestyle of their parents; such as employment status (ibid, p55). Cultural defects could also limit a childs horizons including the amount of material possessions and variation of cognitive experiences that accumulate developmental advantage or disadvantage (ibid, p57). To agree that these opportunities of potential success are both critical and depend on the virtues of wealth, is to agree that the potential success of children is intently manipulated by social engineering. For instance, amongst the diversity of culture, human experiences and individual human differences; the elitist powers currently controlling resources, laws and policies, are maintaining Englands classist society, that according to Brazzel (2007), explains why we seem to be living within an era of segregation, where particular interests are vested and circumstances of wealth moulds our society into identity groups (pp1-2). It seems agreeable that early opportunities of potential success is not only critically dependent on the resources of wealth, before children can even walk to school, but a childs physiological ability is in fact determined by the distribution of wealth, before they have even chosen a primary school or reached the school gates. Let us know explore the illusion of school choices and equal opportunity.

A Vaile of Responsibility, underneath the shadows of a competitive economy

I will not join the bandwagon by arguing against the external mechanisms or internal functions of both independent and mainstream state school choices, but that privileged choices of an advantageous education, should not exist. For example, according to the Department of Education research suggests that 14.3% of the 8.1 million students in England are attending independent schools (2010, pg1), so presently 2,300 independent schools are

 Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor, July 2011

providing excellent educational opportunities at a price' (Directgov, 2011), meanwhile the remaining 85.7% of the population fill 14,671 state schools (Cilt, 2010). I am not insinuating that great standards are not being achieved in state schools, but that better opportunities are in fact for sale. For instance, private schools according to Ball (2003) provide a Cultural milieu and a high standard of education, offering future opportunities of prestige (pg, 15).

Barrys (2010) demands of social justice illuminates this choice of opportunity as a 'rouse', a mere thatcherite fabrication of a meritocratic society that has structured and cultured school choices in England with an intergenerational capitalist uniform (pg, 61-66). For example, The Importance to Teaching White Paper Equalities Impact Assessment has revealed that 40 students out of 80,000 who were eligible for school meals attended Oxford or Cambridge; which is less than most private schools such as Eton and Winchester will individually achieve (DoE, 2011, pg1). Barry (2005) describes such this truism as a virtue of distributed wealth (pg, 58). I will now argue how this has become an intergenerational inheritance of opportunity. Using a Kantian ideology of meritocracy, where man develops little by little through his own effort and must be justly rewarded (1960, pg 3-4), according to Barry (2005) 7% of marketable wealth remains available, so we should ask ourselves how 7% of marketable wealth will be able to reward the ability or achievement of generations to come, if not by some form of inheritance? Furthermore, if better educational opportunities are granted by class characteristics and predominantly favoured towards wealthy parents (Brighouse, 2000, pg112), this means that the prestigious schools in England endorse a capitalist uniform; promoting a contemporary fashion inspired by the advantages of opportunity. If we relate this trend to Brazzels (2007) prior notion of identity groups sharing particular circumstances, then

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school choices can indeed as Brighouse (2000) describes, be characterised as a provisional enemy of equality that has not only triggered institutional competition (pg54), but is modelling the practices and the ontology of class (Ball, 2003, pg18).

So with identity groups competing for the best schools; School choice has become a thatcherite fabrication within Englands meritocratic society; which is probably why England is ranked beneath 57 countries in relation to educational equality (OECD, 2010). Evidently educational policy is avoiding their responsibility of providing equal opportunities in education for all. According to Barry (2005) social justice demands that the accumulative advantages be removed from the fabric of society; this is the only way children can arrive at the school gates with an equal opportunity to flourish, Barry (2005) describes such a fair re-distribution of wealth as a generational task (pg, 169), but also insists that the further society fails to meet the first demand early on in life, should have to provide compensatory interventions for environmental disadvantages (p58). This notion reveals the

counterproductive status quo of school choice. Lets now explore the unnecessary burden of key stage grading and testing that is experienced by children.

The unnecessary burden of grading and testing

I will only be arguing against the deterministic nature of grading and testing that children experience during Key stages 1, 2 and 3. At the end of each year a childs academic ability at the ages of 7, 11 and 14 is measured against eight levels of academic ability (Directgov, 2011). Each level of academic ability embodies potential opportunities, that we have already established is being pre-determined by identity groups (Brazzel, 2007), that can

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and cannot provide their children with the potential of success. Barry (2005) epitomises this as the resources of growth (pg 41).

According to Barry (2005) equal opportunities within a meritocracy can meet the demands of social justice when allocating jobs and income (ibid, pg, 201), but only once the qualifications to be the best man for the job have been fairly distributed (ibid, pg, 37). So according to Barrys prior notion, an equal accumulation of cognitive ability (+) effort (x) individual distinction (=) equal opportunities. Similarly, Curren (2007) also justifies public office and social positions being allocated once fair equality of attaining talent has occurred (pp, 9-10). Both notions run parallel to the impositions against childrens intellectual virtue, those that are out of a childs control branded by Curren (2007) as constitutive luck. According to Curren (2007) a paradox exists between the constitutive luck of grading and testing, and the constitutive responsibility that both teachers and institutions have towards formulating childrens academic standards and intellectual virtue. For example, to agree with the principle of constitutive responsibility is to consider that children, as argued by Curren (2007), are being unnecessarily burdened with illegitimate credentials (pg, 28). So, should we continue to apply both a Kantian ideology and meritocratic ideals within Englands education system? Where man develops little by little through his own efforts and is justly rewarded. According to Rawls (1971) those who have the same level of natural talent and ability and the same willingness to use these gifts should have the same prospects of success, regardless of their social class origin, the class into which they are born and develop until the age of reason (pg, 73). Before I conclude this paper as to what a more socially just English education system would look like, Rawls reference to the age of reason does cause a lasting effect on my thoughts, as there does seem to be an obscure balance of

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accountability that lays dormant, in the sense that children as young as 7, 11, and 14 are being allocated life altering credentials; based on a game of Russian roulette where the futures of children are waged against the constitutive luck caused by grading and testing and the partial accountability of constitutive responsibility of their teachers, parents and educational institutions. But let us not forget that before children have the chance of not understanding their own capacities, where according to Robinson (2009) one size does not fit all (pg, 9), their opportunities in education and in life according to Barry (2005), will already have been predetermined by either the virtues of wealth or its unequal distribution (pg, 58).

Conclusion

My proposal for a more socially just education system involves a national shift towards an equal re-distribution of wealth meanwhile replacing all educational institutions with an egalitarian system providing a high standard of education available and compulsory to all children until the age of sixteen, the age of reason. The next step would be to transform the deterministic nature of grading and testing into an internal utility used by schools to ensure that all children are developing at a similar rate, where no child is left behind. Private tuition, a current privilege of wealth, could be used by schools to assist students who need extra support. Such a shift as Barry (2005) speculates, would take generations before effectively meeting the demands of social justice, but wrongs cannot have a legal descent, just because it is a difficult intergenerational step in the right direction, equal opportunities will never become less of a right for generations to come, a high standard of education for all is hopefully immanent, after which children can then embark on further pursuits of individual distinction after being give a fair chance.

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What is evident from my research is that amongst the deeply entrenches and intergenerational advantages embedded within intergenerational forms of wealth distribution; commencing at the early stages building potential of success and developing onto school choices, that are partially charged with a quality price tag that is consumed by certain identity groups within society. Eradicating this current counterproductive system of education is necessary by those who have the power to create a more socially just education system, those who also have the constitutive responsibility of making a positive step in the right direction, even amongst adversity and the unknown territory that social justice will induce; reassurance should be found in vision that generations to come will be working towards a better world than we now find ourselves, within the 21st century. The age of inequality could become a history lesson based on the great shift that humanity collectively made towards a more socially just system of educating our children, an education based on the principles of equal opportunity and social justice.

 Brian Valenzuela Sotomayor, July 2011

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Kant, I. (1960). Education, United States of America: Michigan Press. Kavanagh, D (1987) Thatcherism and British Politics: The End of consensus, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp1-21 John Rawls, (1971) Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001), pp. 43-44. Cf., A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 73. Robinson, K (2009) The Element; How finding your passion changes everything: London, Penguin Group: pg9).