Connectedness and Social Justice SEAA 2003

David Zyngier recently completed the development of the ruMAD? Program
http: //www.rumad.org.au - Kids Making a Difference in the Community – for the Education Foundation of Victoria. He is a lecturer in Teaching Studies and Pedagogy at Monash University and a former school principal. The area of his research is "How School Connectedness can improve student engagement and student outcomes, particularly for at risk students." He has recently assisted on a project investigating the effectiveness of "Non Systemic and Non Traditional Programs" in addressing student disengagement with learning for the Frankston Mornington Peninsula Local Learning and Employment Network.

Connectedness - isn't it time that education came out from behind the classroom door and Rediscovered Social Justice.

Significant interest and concern are currently being expressed about student retention, participation and achievement rates in post compulsory schooling.

Governments and schools have developed many programs to improve outcomes in the areas of student engagement and disengagement with learning. The most successful of these programs engage the learner with the real world - ideas and issues that young people see as important for themselves now and for their futures. A recent study from Queensland has called this connectedness. Connectedness is more than merely "real life" education. Connectedness must enable students to have more control of their lives and be connected to a more participatory social vision. "We all know that from being in the classroom daily that the main thing students want when it comes to engaging education is to leave the classroom! Students crave the opportunity to take education beyond the four walls as it appears in its usual format." (Papadopoulos, 2002)

How are we to overcome these conflicting tensions where teachers acknowledge that a range of thinking and learning styles needs to be incorporated to enable students not only to engage, but also to achieve improved outcomes especially for at risk students from disadvantaged and low socio economic backgrounds?

Many teachers seem to intuitively understand that learning needs to be interactive and fun if it is to be effective. But do we unintentionally ‘doubly’ disadvantage the already disadvantaged students by serving them up more of the "basics" and "busy work" instead of actively engaging their intelligence?

Connectedness to social and community development, a generative pedagogy, aims to address social problems through ‘action learning’ and ‘action research’ approaches to schooling and education.

Can you imagine studying something for twelve years and at the end you still haven't mastered it? Imagine … students sitting through long school years, through thousands of hours [it is estimated that students spend some 16000 hours in school] of instruction in reading and writing, math and history. All the autumns, winters and springs of their youth are dominated by a schooling that refuses to sink in. At the end, they are on their way to college still needing more work in language, math and social studies; or else they are flung unceremoniously into the job-world that has little room for them. Whichever direction they go, their education has not permitted them to find out who they are and what's happening to them, and what they need to be free and whole. A disorientation towards reality accompanies the student's weak possession of literacy and conceptual skills. (Shor, 1980: 195)

The problems of schools are so compelling and the urge to get in there and deal with what is happening to our children so understandably powerful we sometimes lose the capacity or do not have the time to step back and ask the critical questions about the organisation of the society in which we live. (Apple, 1996:109-110)

Most educators are committed to making schools a better place for their students. Therefore recent calls for improvement and changes in pedagogy are crucial (Apple, 1996:108).

Most teachers will be familiar with the student claims that the classroom is boring and that one of the things students want most when it comes to engaging education is to leave the classroom! A teacher recently wrote that students crave the opportunity to take education beyond the four walls as it appears in its usual format (Papadopoulos, 2002).

This analysis is informed by Gale's (2000) various perspectives on social justice which he characterises as redistributive, retributive and recognitive. These distinctions are predicated on the persistent and predictable structural inequalities that continue to advantage and disadvantage social groups and that this inequality is neither the result of individual attributes of the student, nor of cultural or other deprivation but the very nature of the socio-political system.

Commencing with the recommendations of the recent major Queensland study (Lingard et al., 2001a), the concept of a connected education is further developed through reference to the work of critical pedagogy to show that there is no such thing as a value free curriculum and that the calls for a more practical real life curriculum for at risk students is a masquerade that serves to further disempower marginalised youth and may create as many problems of disengagement and disconnectedness and student alienation as it seeks to solve.

The challenges to teachers and schools of a socially critical and connected pedagogy are advanced to explain the connection between social justice and connectedness in the classroom. A connected education it is shown can be intellectually challenging, relevant, caters for difference and social supportive. Connectedness is seen as a bridge between community need and private action. This paper also highlights the anecdotal reports from practising teachers that learning needs to be interactive and also needs to be relevant for it to be effective. But do teachers unintentionally ‘doubly’ disadvantage the already disadvantaged students by serving them up more of the "basics" and "busy work" instead of actively engaging their intelligence?

Rejecting a deficit or redistributive concept of educational reform as a panacea for at risk students it is suggested that there is an alternative - a socially just connected education where students will no longer see themselves as victims, objectified and exploited as innocent and docile victims of the system (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Carlson & Apple, 1998).

The role of schools in democracy and democratic schools in the development of social justice is discussed to demonstrate the crucial role that pedagogy plays in the production and reproduction of educational advantage and privilege. A socially just society, it is suggested not only provides work and sustenance for its members but also seeks to redress and eliminate oppression and domination.

I conclude by offering a new concept of a Generative Pedagogy [1] as a response to the issue of rediscovering social justice and equity through school connectedness and student engagement.

The Australian education reform programs of the last thirty years have in most instances given primacy to the achievement of social outcomes for disadvantaged at-risk students over the achievement of their intellectual results. Schools have a unique and central purpose as institutions to promote the intellectual habits of mind in all students. Of all the social institutions, only schools have been assigned the task of developing and distributing intellectual capacities to the total population. Perhaps the central equity issue in schooling is the distribution of such capacities across all schools and student cohorts. Research recently completed in Queensland (Lingard et al., 2001a) indicates that it is not sufficient for schools in socially disadvantaged areas, or any schools for that matter, merely to provide social support. Schooling must be socially supportive and intellectually demanding.

Experienced teachers acknowledge that a range of thinking and learning styles needs to be incorporated to enable students not only to engage, but also to achieve improved outcomes. This improvement is especially needed for students from disadvantaged and low socio economic backgrounds - those students who various government and independent reports have termed most at risk of non completing 12 years of education or its equivalent. (Australia. Parliament. House of Representatives. Standing Committee on Education and Training. et al., 2002)

As a focus of curriculum development, connectedness is not new and has been defended as a valuable pedagogic strategy at least since the early twentieth century by progressive educators such as Dewey in 1916. The concept of teaching and learning based on community and intellectual "projects" is central to this discussion. More recently The Centre for Applied Educational Research at the University of Melbourne developed a checklist for Middle Years education, which they call the 20 Strategic Intentions for Middle Years Five of their priorities clearly relate to the issue of school-community connectedness. Schools, the Centre suggests, should

· Emphasise active student centred learning and the development of autonomous learners

· Make use of off-campus learning and learning resources in the wider community, and

In Apples' view (Apple, 1996) students are the central premise of schools, not existing knowledge, staff or assessment. Students are the reason and the major resource for accomplishing reform (along with teachers!) The Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study (Lingard et al., 2001a) was concerned with how student learning, both academic and social, could be enhanced. The study's original contribution to the school reform debate is to specify which aspects of teaching require our urgent attention. The QSRLS was a three-year intensive observation of 24 representative state primary and secondary schools undertaken by some of Australia's pre-eminent educational thinkers. Almost 1000 separate lessons were carefully observed and analysed across a variety of subjects and years levels. The analytical tools were developed and localised from previous seminal work in the USA in the early 1990's (Newmann, 1996). The final report is in two volumes. Together they represent the largest and most detailed school reform study, almost 500 pages of the most exhaustive and important education research undertaken in Australia. This study led directly to the development of the alternative New Basics[2] curriculum (Zyngier, 2002b) currently being trialled in parallel with the more traditional (old basics) Key Learning Area (KLA) approach.

The study was concerned with how student learning, both academic and social, could be enhanced. The base assumption of the research was that this enhancement required quality classroom teaching and assessment practices and curricula relevant to students’ futures. The current educational emphasis on a credentialled society defines quality student outcomes in terms of academic results from limited, standardised testing of basic skills, a generalised ranking out of 100 that says very little about what has been learnt and how well it has been learned. 'It is not fair to students who cannot afford to leave school earlier than year 12, given the new structures of work and further education, nor to those for whom schooling is successful in traditional terms, to perform the selecting and sorting functions of the normal secondary school years when that sorting is based on old job and societal structures' (Brennan, 2001:23). Instead, New Basics defines quality student outcomes in terms of a sustained and disciplined inquiry focused on powerful, important ideas and concepts which are connected to students’ experiences and the world in which they live.

The study's original contribution to the school reform debate is to specify which aspects of teaching require schools’ urgent attention. What did this mammoth study have to say about community-school connectedness?

The key finding of the Report should be no surprise. In order to achieve improved educational outcomes for all students but especially for those labelled as disadvantaged, 'at-risk' or as the recent report Bridging the Gap called them, have nots (Feeney, 2000), schools and the teachers in the classroom must shift teacher attention from the emphasis from so-called basic skills to what we know as higher order thinking - towards what the QSRLS report has termed productive pedagogies. Quality learning experience is acknowledged as what the best teachers have always provided for their students – intellectually challenging material that is relevant and connected to children’s lives, recognisant that children learn in different ways and have different needs, all done in a supportive class room environment. (Lingard et al., 2001b:103-105).

This is not meant to be prescriptive for teachers. The researchers clearly state that productive pedagogies only seek to provide a framework and a common language by which we can usefully describe and then discuss what we do in the classroom. It does not pretend to be an exhaustive list of pedagogical practice but a 'discussion starter and a window into the usually private space of teachers’ work' (Lingard et al., 2001a) behind the classroom door. The QSRLS does not aim to identify a single pedagogy or set of pedagogies to be universally applied, rather it aims to facilitate discussion about pedagogy within the context of localised teacher professional learning communities. Whilst emphasising the salience of what happens in the classroom, we also must recognise the importance of external supports, visionary leadership and resources that support classroom practice (Lingard et al., 2001b).

The presence of all four elements – intellectually challenging material, connectedness or relevance, difference and social supportiveness – contributes to the practice of a productive pedagogy.

Secondary schools in the compulsory years ought to be able to provide an education that engages all students and that is of the best possible quality, at the forefront of educational innovation. ... For students to attend school when it is a compulsory institution in a democracy means that society has a large investment in the wide range of what schools can offer a community. (Brennan, 2001:20)

The QSRLS research (Lingard et al., 2001a, 2001b) found that it was students most at-risk of failure, from socially, culturally and economically disadvantaged conditions who were the least likely to be exposed to the intellectually challenging and relevant material. Those most at risk of failure are therefore condemned to mediocrity in a most Kafkaesque way.

'Schools not only reflect social inequality, they actively contribute to widening that inequality during the secondary years' (Brennan, 2001:13). Connectedness to social and community development aims to redress social inequality through ‘action learning’ and ‘action research’ approaches to schooling and education.

What sort of Connected education?

Connectedness actually can incorporate all the four dimensions of Productive Pedagogies - teaching that is intellectually challenging, relevant, cater for difference and is social supportiveness. Apple (1996:99-100) writes that 'few people who have witnessed the levels of boredom and alienation among our students in schools will quarrel with the assertion that curricula should be more closely linked to real life.' Who actually decides which vision of real life; whose values are to be taught then becomes critical. The construction of a real life on the basis of preparation for often non-existent paid work may create as many problems of disengagement and disconnectedness and student alienation as it seeks to solve (Connell, 1993; H. Giroux, 1999; H. A. Giroux, 1983; Kemmis & Lynch, 2002; Macklin, 2002; Thomson, 2002; Walker & Commonwealth Schools Commission (Australia). Curriculum Development Centre., 1987; Willis, 1977). Linking what is done in the classroom almost exclusively to its utility to the workforce and the economy can serve to produce results in student outcomes opposite to those intended (Australian Curriculum Studies Association, 1996; Knight, 2002). The false construction of real life ignores or pushes to the margins the systemic unemployment, low wages, youth exploitation, part-timism, non-unionisation etc. Such student engagement and curriculum integration that prepare students for "real life" is a partial fiction, as it institutionalises as official knowledge perspectives that benefit those who are already the most powerful groups in society (Apple, 1996:100). 'Schools' purposes have narrowed too far to a "human capital" argument whereby schools are only valued for their contribution to the economic life of the nation and the future job prospects of individual students' (Brennan, 2001:5).

A curriculum that is connected to the world of work is not enough. The practical then needs to be combined with the critical and theoretical. Apple (1996:102) suggests that this combination is crucial for marginalised youth whose lives are controlled by decisions of dominant groups and legitimized by a neo-liberal social justice vision which is based on deficit theory and blame the victim. The recent renewed calls by conservative politicians in Victoria for the re-introduction of technical schools confuses a practical curriculum with connectedness. Moreover the report into the new Victorian Certificate of Applied Learning (VCAL) warns that such a new program will be:

'… difficult to accommodate within the existing institutional culture of secondary schools [as it is] a significant departure from the dominant forms of teaching and learning since the 1950's [and] schools will need to undergo significant and substantial change. It is imperative that [there be a] shift in institutional culture [and that the] challenge to current institutional cultures be recognised and embraced.' (Henry et al., 2002:4)

Critical educators argue (Apple, 1990; Apple & Beane, 1999; Brennan, 2001; H. A. Giroux, 1983; Kanpol, 1997; McLaren, 1999) that schools should never be mere training grounds for the industry or economic needs of a nation. Even recent reports from the OECD and UNICEF come to similar conclusions (OECD, 2002; UNICEF, 2002). If schools overly focus on the problems and needs of a practical everyday life, (Driver Education, HIV Education, Health Education, Business Education, Bike Education etc) the essential skills of critical reasoning are often ignored, further disempowering students. Recent research on alternative programs in secondary schools for at-risk students suggests that a practical hands-on curriculum is not necessarily an engaging curriculum (Zyngier & Gale, 2003). Apple (Apple, 1996:xv) asserts that many of these programs result from powerful conservative lobbies blaming education for unemployment, loss of traditional knowledge and values and just about everything else that is wrong with society. But he concludes that 'education is not just preparation for life but life itself' (Apple, 1996:xvi). The pressure now is on schools to respond to the market regardless of the social justice cost. The result of this is that innovative and critical pedagogy that might better serve the needs of students and their communities is replaced with curriculum existing traditional curriculum (Apple, 1996:xvi).

A connected education, if it is to be based on values of social justice, must enable students to have more control of their lives; learn about individual and collective rights and be connected to a more participatory social vision than that of providing the human capital needs of industry and business.

Students must be empowered to inquire, act and reflect on the issues that are of real concern to them and to positively transform situations where they see disadvantage or unfairness in their own and other's lives.

Connectedness then is a bridge between community need and private action. Its focus is a society where the needs and contributions of everyone are respected and valued.

· In our current society, inequity exists and people come from places of privilege and disadvantage.

· Local community networks are where people first learn about inclusive and representative processes.

· Real and lasting improvement in many areas of social need can only be achieved through structural change. Band-aid or quick fix solutions will not necessarily address the underlying issues. (Stegley Foundation, 2001)

Give a hungry person a fish and you feed them for a day. Give a hungry person a fishing rod and teach them how to fish and you enable them to feed themselves for a lifetime.

But beware of assumptions. What have we found out about the circumstances of the hungry person? Can they already fish? Are there any fish in the river? Is the real root of the problem, not the lack of skills, but an upstream multinational company polluting the river? Participation in the action projects empowers students to take action within their community and to connect with other people working towards similar outcomes. (Zyngier & Brunner, 2002:3)

It is important that students have a chance to discuss and reflect on the activities on which they are about to embark and how these might contribute to longer-term change and improvement within their community. Connectedness must:

· come from the students' own concerns about what is unfair, and inspire enthusiasm among all those involved

· get students involved in the community to tackle issues of social justice, responsibility, tolerance and cultural diversity

· create awareness and understanding of the needs of others through personal contact

· allow everyone involved in the project to take greater responsibility for their own lives

· consider the effects on the environment, society and economy(both positive and negative);

· help students to express their views, become critical thinkers and learn how to put problem solving skills into action in order to challenge the world around them (Zyngier & Brunner, 2002:33)

There is no such thing as a Value Free Curriculum

Some teachers mistakenly believe their role is to be neutral. Our children should know right from wrong. Why shouldn't we identify and acknowledge the values we implicitly communicate, and ask whether we want these values taught? The values adopted should be those of the school and the community in which it is based. (The Age, 23 September 2002)

We have an obligation to help young people seek out a range of ideas and to voice their own. We often shirk this responsibility teaching, what Michael Apple calls, high status knowledge as if it was the truth, immutable and infallible (Apple & Beane, 1999:15) while silencing the voices of those outside the mainstream. Here is an example suggested by Apple (Apple & Beane, 1999) and regularly found in our daily papers:

Consider a geography class using the media to focus on a study of natural disasters. How we think about natural disasters and whose definition is crucial. We are accustomed to seeing (unfortunately) the damage to peoples’ lives from drought, hurricane and volcanic eruption as natural disasters. But is this seemingly neutral way of understanding these events really neutral or are particular values subtly insinuated in or omitted?

We recently saw the devastation caused by massive mud slides in South America - 100’s of people killed (we will never know how many - why?) and thousands of houses washed away as torrential rains washed down a mountainside.

Every year such rains occur in, every year people die. This time an entire side of a mountain collapsed - the people living there died. No one in the valleys - the safe and fertile land - died!

Poor families are forced to live on the dangerous hillsides, prone to mudslides or volcanic disturbance, because this is the only land left to them that they can afford. People crowd onto these mountainsides because of poverty and historical land ownership patterns that are grossly unequal. The problem is not the rain - a natural and needed yearly occurrence - but the unequal economic structure (probably a result of colonial occupation) that allows a small minority to control the lives of the majority!'

This altered and more complete understanding of the problem then is rich in teaching possibilities that connects to the real world.

The fourfold challenge of Connectedness.

The first challenge to teachers who wish to contribute to a connected education for their students is how they and their students get connected to the real world in an organic and authentic manner that not only values the students’ culture and needs but adds value to their learning experiences in terms of the mandated curriculum (Zyngier & Gale, 2003).

Secondly, schools will need to then accommodate the result of such a radical and transformative change in the space and place that the school would/could occupy in the community.

Thirdly, the education system as a whole will need to integrate such dramatically different curricula that challenges the viability of a curriculum determined by the requirements of university admission. Teachers (and students) will have to confront a system which 'is a social construction informed by a particular view of what education is, itself embedded in the values of the dominant social groups '(Gale, 2000).

The final challenge is for society itself. Society will need to accommodate an engaged, empowered and perhaps enraged generation of learners demanding not just sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, but social justice and equity for not just the few but for all, a recognitive social justice concerned not just with the redistribution of goods and services. The social justice demanded by such students/adults may demand a rethinking of social arrangements that are currently accepted as just, giving status to action that is currently thought to be counterproductive and decentering concerns thought to be pivotal (Gale, 2000).

Then students will no longer see themselves as victims, objectified and exploited, as innocent and docile victims of the system (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; Carlson & Apple, 1998). Together with their teachers, students will have greater control over not just the content but the delivery of their curriculum.

Connectedness and social justice in the classroom

If the 'tail of the test wag[ging] the body of the curriculum' (Apple & Beane, 1999:xii) is to replaced with a more empowering pedagogy teachers and schools will need to begin to question their own practices in the classroom. They will need to ask and find answers to the following:

2. To what extent are links with students’ background knowledge made explicit?

3. To what extent do classroom activities or tasks make it clear that what is learned in lessons is, or will be, of some use-value outside of the school in ‘the real world’?

4. To what extent are classroom activities and tasks based on the resolution of a specific and realistic problem(s)?

5. Do we unintentionally doubly disadvantage the already disadvantaged students by serving them up more of the "basics" and "busy work" instead of actively engaging their intelligence?

Democratic schools - engaging with difference

'Surely it is an obligation of education in a democracy to empower the young members of the public to participate and play articulate roles in the public space (Apple & Beane, 1999:8).' Like Strong Democracy (Knight, 2002), the Full Service Schools (Kemmis & Lynch, 2002) model, and Productive Pedagogies, the investigation by Thomson (Thomson, 2002) of the "rustbelt schools" of Adelaide recognises that a teaching practice that includes both class and culturally appropriate teaching and assessment are the key factors for success for all students not just those who come to school with the social and cultural capital acknowledged by the school system as appropriate (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990). Such pedagogy can make a real difference. Kemmis suggests twin purposes for education, the formation of autonomous and responsible persons and the formation of a productive rational and socially just society (Kemmis & Lynch, 2002:1). Knight suggests the test or benchmark of a democratic education is not just the difference it makes to the lives of the students but also to the community to which the student belongs (Knight, 2002:103). A connected pedagogy will incorporate intellectually challenging material that is relevant and connected to children’s lives, recognising that children learn in different ways and have different needs and engage with that difference in a supportive classroom environment.

Recent calls for reform assume a single purpose for their recommendations for school improvement: to increase equality of opportunity or in its own words 'to break out of the cycle of unemployment, underemployment, marginalisation and reduced participation in our society' (Feeney et al., 2002a:60). They see this as a necessary condition for democracy.

Gale (2000) has characterised this approach as redistributive social justice, which falls short of delivering social justice as it does nothing about the unjust social arrangements that are the cause of the problems it highlights. There is no social justice involved when this individualisation of the democratic process actually promotes the interests of the dominant group in society (Gale, 2000:264). Gale states that the social justice interests of groups, not just individuals, must be taken into account so that their views are seriously engaged in decision-making processes. 'Self determination does not mean separate determination', he writes (Gale, 2000:266), echoing what Carlson and Apple (1998:9) call a code word for conditions that are better described as apartheid or separate development.

Juxtaposed to this conception, an authentic democratic classroom promoting a radical social justice is one that is functioning in a productive pedagogy paradigm.

'[Democracy] … rests on a recognition of the importance of a fully political and educative notion of democracy that captures the collective struggle by citizens to build institutions in participatory ways. It is based on a commitment towards participatory movements that are grounded in multiple "emancipatory" projects that are themselves critically reflexive.' (Carlson & Apple, 1998:9)

Such a democratic conception has two complimentary but divergent conceptions of equality. The first is the equalisation of the life conditions of the learners, the distributive justice of equality of opportunity proposed in reports like Bridging the Gap (Feeney et al., 2002b), and the underlying assumption of liberal deficit models of education reform and social justice. The second conception of equality is that of fairness - the extent to which a society acts to ensure that everyone in it has "equal encouragement" to achieve success in society (Knight, 2002:103).

This second conception is not a resource issue but one that is closely tied to the practice of pedagogy, to what happens behind the classroom door, in the school and the education system.

'Only reforms that recognise these conditions and actively engage them are likely to make a lasting difference in the lives of the children, educators and communities served by schools' (Apple & Beane, 1999:12-13). This is what distinguishes democratic or socially critical schools from other humanistic or child centred progressive schools. Such schools try to not only lessen social inequalities but also change the conditions, which create them in the first place. They explicitly reject any deficit model and actively engage with a recognitive justice social justice framework. The democratic processes within the school reflect that recognition and reject iniquitous structures and processes. Caring about kids is no longer enough, teachers and schools must also care about racism, injustice, power, poverty etc. (Apple & Beane, 1999:13-15)

An alternative to deficit

Gregory Ramsey , author of the Ramsey Report for New South Wales Education, surveyed the last 200 years of teaching and education in his contribution to the Bridging the Gap conference. He looks forward to public schools being driven out of being part of the bureaucracy in preference to doing what they do best - responding to local and regional needs. Bureaucracies are good, he suggests, at ensuring that inputs like teacher numbers, class sizes, buildings and equipment, are allocated fairly. But this traditionally ensures nothing more than equal mediocrity rather than uniformly high levels of performance. 'Schools,' he says, 'are good enough, rather than as good as they could be' (Ramsey, 2001:4).

He concludes that this all begs the question of 'what education is for anyway, what does it mean and how must it change to meet the new demands of the 21^st Century? … The knowledge revolution must be accompanied by an education revolution in funding, purpose and direction' (Ramsey, 2001:5 my emphasis).

The problems are not so much about money and resources as many well meaning reports and reforms suggest. Schools can't be expected to bridge the gap of the economy, culture and society. Peter Botsman suggests that

It’s a commitment that goes beyond funding. … I wished the problems that [students at risk] faced were just about money … they are about culture, about curriculum, about hours of schooling, flexibility, about home based teaching. They were about listening to the needs of families and responding to them. They were about so many things that were off the agenda of your typical suburban high school that I came to the horrible conclusion that by advocating for more investment in those schools I was actually working against all the things that those parents were trying to achieve!' (Botsman, 2001:1 his emphasis) 'Moreover '[y]ou don’t train people in at-risk communities to the lowest expectations and lowest quality, you [have to] train people at the highest quality levels. (Botsman, 2001:3)

Studies such as the recent Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study (Lingard et al., 2001a), the Full Service School model developed by Kemmis (Kemmis & Lynch, 2002), and Knight's concept of Strong Democracy (Knight, 2002; Pearl & Knight, 1999), all conclude that there is a viable alternative to the deficit thinking paradigm. It is not necessary to identify a single pedagogy to be universally applied, rather to stimulate discussion about an education within the context of social justice. Teachers cannot do it on their own - but without a change in the way we teach, improved student outcomes for those we recognise as needing the most assistance will never be achieved.

What makes a socially just education?

Bridging the Gap, the report by the National Education and Employment Forum, produced by the World Education Fellowship after two years of Australia-wide community, business and government consultation (Feeney et al., 2002b), stated that its aim was to address the

'… key issues of concern across the country about those Australians who continue to experience disadvantage in a variety of ways. It reaffirms the role of education as a major contributor to the transformation of Australian society, and as a passport to employment and fuller participation in that society.' (Feeney et al., 2002b:5)

The perception that education can transform 'the personal and social fortunes of people who are disadvantaged' (Feeney et al., 2002a:7) is based on the assumption that schools can make a difference through compensating these children at risk for their alleged deficits. Knight's review (Knight, 2002) of various reform programs with the avowed aim of reducing social inequality in Victorian school education since the 1950's showed that all were informed by a deficit (either social, cultural or intellectual) understanding of social justice.

A socially just pedagogy must be inclusive, engaging and enabling (Gale, 2000). It must not only recognise and respect difference but celebrate it as 'a source of strength and vitality in the community' (Kemmis & Lynch, 2002:3). Pedagogy must encourage relationships that enable and engage students in valued and worthwhile activities, linking learning not just to the community but also empowering students to use their own authentic knowledge, values and culture to take control over their own lives (Shor, 1996; Thomson, 2002).

Knight (2002:102 )suggests that so long as education reform is based on a deficit model of social justice the nature of the real problem is obscured and unrealised. Social advantage, the structural reproduction of society is maintained and enhanced by the curriculum that is increasingly irrelevant to at risk children (Shor, 1996).

The crucial role that pedagogy plays in the production and reproduction of educational advantage and privilege cannot be ignored (Apple, 1996; Apple & Beane, 1999; Bourdieu & Passeron, 1990; H. A. Giroux, 1981; Thomson, 2002). Recent Australian studies, such as the Queensland School Reform Longitudinal Study (QSRLS) (Lingard et al., 2001a), the Full Service School model developed by Kemmis (Kemmis & Lynch, 2002), Knight's concept of Strong Democracy (Knight, 2002) and Thomson (Thomson, 2002) all conclude that there is a viable alternative to the deficit thinking paradigm adopted by these international reports (OECD, 2002; UNICEF, 2002) and the governments that act on their advice.

The key finding of the QSRLS (Lingard et al., 2001a:x-xv) should be no surprise to experienced educators. The OECD reports that 'students from a lower socio-economic background attending schools in which the average socio-economic background is high tend to perform much better than when they are enrolled in a school with a below-average socio-economic intake – and the reverse is true for more advantaged students in less advantaged schools' (OECD, 2002:88).

This important factor, reinforces the QSRLS conclusion that it may not be the socio-economic status per se that determines the outcome of education, but how that status is mediated at through pedagogy that can make a difference to outcomes. The higher the level of intellectual demand expected of students by teachers, the greater the improved productive performance and hence, improved student outcomes. The corollary of this could be that improved outcomes have less to do with increased teacher and school resources (Lingard et al., 2001a, 2001b).

Reforms that focus on the individualistic success of the disadvantaged are silent on how we can achieve the development of a society that is not only productive but is also socially just. Recent research suggests that pedagogies that only obliquely connect with student understandings are not pedagogies of social transformation but rather those of individual adaption (Zyngier & Gale, 2003). 'Experiential affective and emotional learning can shape dispositions and loyalties' equally towards domination and disadvantage inhibiting and not enhancing student empowerment (Apple, 1996:102-103). Practical and even progressive teaching and curricula are not always socially critical. A socially just society not only provides work and sustenance for its members but should also seeks to redress and eliminate oppression and domination - the cause of the disadvantage in the first analysis (Knight, 2002).

Productive Pedagogies, like the Full Service School and Strong Democracy models of education, address equally the value of active involvement of students' learning in the community and community involvement in the school with the students. This is not just a contribution to individualistic development, but also and equally important, a contribution to community development and empowerment.

Education is more than mere instrumentalism in either serving the interests of the economy and/or the social mobility of some at the expense of others. Education is the means to a dualistic end - serving the interests of both the individual and their families and the communities in which they live.

What sort of social justice is envisaged by the redistributive view of social justice where the imperative to reduce the gap between the haves and have nots is critical? Gale (2000) suggests that it does not rely on the view that every person has an equal moral worth, but purely on their instrumental value to the future good of society and the economy. A fixation with people's assets (or their lack of assets) and only minimally with social processes and procedures, tends to only reproduce inequality. Emphasis on education opportunity and empowerment as if it is a material good, tends to limit social justice to quantifiable and measurable outcomes. The artificial appeal to a so-called neutrality of objectivity at best regards all youth as the same, at worst it actually obscures the assimilation of group differences by the dominant class (Gale, 2000:260).

The overwhelming subtext of reform programs like Bridging the Gap (Feeney et al., 2002a) is the tendency to confine its recommended intervention to the economic spheres of life and ignore the cultural politics of social institutions (Gale, 2000:260). As important as it is to have a clear perception of "who has what material conditions" these are only the first steps in the process of achieving social justice. The redistribution in a more equitable manner of the necessary goods and services for individual advancement must not be discounted as irrelevant, but they are to be seen as 'part of the project not the project itself' (Gale, 2000:267). Within schools this means how students themselves are identified and by whom, as at risk and the extent in which all those people and communities involved in schooling are also involved in determining their own development and the schooling's purposes (Gale, 2000:268). As Young puts it,

'Having and exercising the opportunity to participate in making collective decisions that affect one's actions foster the development of capacities for thinking about one's own needs in relation to the needs of others, taking an interest in the relation of others to social institutions reasoning and being articulate and persuasive and so on. (1990:92)

We wait the day when every teacher will be able to write a student report that states:

'[George/Georgina] became totally engaged through the planning and organising community connected curriculum that also encouraged teamwork and shared responsibility. [George/Georgina] worked effectively because he/she had been given a high level of ownership of the program.' (Papadopoulos, 2002)

Then our students will no longer see themselves as victims, objectified and exploited as innocent and docile casualties of the system (Bourdieu & Ferguson, 1999; McLaren, 1999). Together with their teachers, students will have acquired control over not just the content but the delivery of their curriculum (Pearl & Knight, 1999; Shor, 1996; Zyngier & Brunner, 2002). The research of Shor (1996), Apple and Beane (1999) Pearl and Knight (1999) reinforces the central role that student connectedness and engagement have with improved and successful outcomes for marginalised and at risk students. The results of innovative social justice programs being trialled by the Education Foundation in Victoria are practical testimony that recognitive social justice requires the representation of the interests of groups not just individuals so that their views are seriously engaged in the decision making process (Davidson, 2002a, 2002b; Vetere, 2002; Zyngier, 2001).

Students' work restructuring the school and its curriculum must be recognised as a fundamental principle of school-level innovation in secondary schools. Unless the central relationship among students and between students and teachers is rearranged to include [active student participation] then most innovation will not be sustainable. …What is clear is that ... school change can only be accomplished with significant student participation ... and an engagement with ...the community on the basis of changing purposes of secondary schools. (Brennan, 2001:22-23)

Towards a new Generative Pedagogy

What I tentatively term Generative Pedagogy extends the definition of Productive Pedagogy as described by the QSRLS (Lingard et al., 2001a) by combining it with connectedness. Quality student outcomes, in terms of a sustained and disciplined inquiry focused on powerful important ideas and concepts, which are connected to students’ experiences and the world in which they live can go even further. They must also include the crucial element of action for social justice and social change if teachers and schools are to effectively and authentically engage marginalised and at risk students (Shor, 1996).

This concept of Generative Pedagogy after Giddens’ notion of a generative politics (Giddens, 1994:93) and social reflexivity or agency is the key connecting link between education and questions of combating poverty, absolute or relative, redressing the degradation of the environment; contesting arbitrary power; reducing the role of violence and force in social life (Giddens, 1994:293-294).

Giddens suggests that social change occurs when people become more active and reflexive, ' … where the past has lost its hold. Or becomes one "reason" among others for doing what one does, pre-existing habits are only a limited guide to action; while the future, open to numerous "scenarios", becomes of compelling interest.' He concludes that the crucial issue is generating active trust - trust in others or in institutions and that this has to be actively produced and negotiated. Reflexive agency demands increased "visibility" of social relations and at the same time also acts to increase this visibility (Gale & Densmore, 2000:Chapter 9; Giddens, 1994:92-94).

Giddens explains that generative politics exist in the space that links the state to reflexive mobilisation in society at large. Generative politics is based on individuals and groups taking action to create and increase social justice, making things happen rather than having things done or happening to them. In Giddens' words '[g]enerative politics is a defense of the politics of the public domain … the main means of effectively approaching problems of poverty and social exclusion…' (Giddens, 1994:15)

Giddens' (1994:15) allusion above to space and that 'the whole population lives in the same 'discursive space …[that] produce major new political dilemmas and contradictions' recalls de Certeau's' (1988) notion of the spaces and cracks available for political action and counter hegemonic opposition in a reproductive society.

Structural responses, no matter how much they seem to champion social justice and equity are too often couched in the discredited language of deficit. For them the solution seems to be resource based - more money, more teachers, more computers and more schools.

The central issue at stake is equity. Whether equality is attainable is in the end a political question and not one about which education alone can or should be held responsible. (Knight, 2002:85, 104)

The deficit model adopted by many proponents of social justice is another form of the oppression and violence described by Bourdieu and Passeron (1990) and Thomson (2002) where treating the learner as a victim inhibits the full development of the potential of the learner.

The response of various reports and reform programs (Zyngier, 2002a, 2003) is to provide solutions to the future welfare of 'at risk' populations mainly through the provision of additional resources and reworked programs to promote equal treatment and equality of opportunity. Such action rests the assumption that this will then lead to improved and equal results for all. This is done with the belief, according to Knight, that it will even out the life chances for children at risk including indigenous children in Australia (Knight, 2002).

The recent UNICEF report (UNICEF, 2002), focussing as it does on the need to "get them young" defines alleged student shortcomings in social and cultural capital as the real issue to be resolved, ignoring the effects of school structures, curriculum irrelevance and disjuncture and disengagement of students.

So long as educators and administrators work on the premise that 'education has the ability to transform the personal and social futures of the disadvantaged' as a group, we will continue to operate in the deficit mode of thinking. Individuals from among the at risk and marginalised will no doubt benefit, but while there are no serious work choices for the disadvantaged youth and a decline in alternative pathways for 'at risk' students; then students in the privileged group of society will continue to succeed in a schooling system that serves to extend their social advantage at the expense of the majority (Knight, 2002:101; Teese & Polesel, 2003; Thomson, 2002).

We have witnessed a rise in student disengagement from school and the curriculum and decreased student interest in social values and civic responsibility (Lingard et al., 2001a, 2001b). At the same time we see a retreat to the deficit model of responding to social justice and disadvantage relying on the provision of increased resources as a panacea (Zyngier, 2003). The structural inequalities that continue to advantage and disadvantage social groups are persistent and predictable. The inequality is not the result of individual attributes neither of the student, nor of cultural or other deprivation but the very nature of the socio-political system (Zyngier, 2002a). Gale and Densmore (2003:3) after Giddens (1994) emphasise that without the engagement of teachers with schooling and with the broader social, political and economic conditions of society, then the ability and opportunity of teachers, students, parents and other community members to work together to make things happen, rather than have things done to them by others will be seriously limited.

A Generative Pedagogy is different because it implies an active social justice element entrenched in the curriculum and the pedagogy of the classroom. Without this, the institutional response to students' disengagement/disconnection from schooling remains confined to structural and programmatic solutions. Not just in relation to curriculum content that is presented by the teacher in the classroom but also in the national and systemic reactions to the social justice issues of equity and disadvantage (Shor, 1996).

Three final questions to all interested in education

1. Is it possible to change schools without a concomitant change in the social and economic conditions?

2. Is school reform more about raising the achievement level and scores on what the reformers have determined to be "high status knowledge" than improving the lives of the children?

Students are the first to discern whether the focus on 'real life' is a strategy for oppression or empowerment. 'If it does not connect in a powerful way to their daily experiences, many students simply will return to the cynical bargain to doing enough just to get through.' In order to reintroduce a generative pedagogy into schools, teachers will need to work out how to combine a socially just curricula and teaching with an emphasis on student habitas while acknowledging the role of dominant knowledge as "the cultural capital of the dominant" (Apple, 1996:104).

Every 'reform' must be then tested against this principle of who benefits, how does it relate to relations of exploitation and domination that provide the social context of schooling.

In the end we are talking about the lives and the futures of our children (Apple, 1996:118).

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[1] From a discussion with Assoc. Prof. Trevor Gale about Giddins' concept of generative politics.

[2] Teachers who are interested in exploring the concepts of productive pedagogies and the New Basics can read about them in more detail on the web at http: //education.qld.gov.au/public_media/reports/curriculum-framework/qsrls/ where original source material can be downloaded and printed or read on line.

Connectedness - isn't it time that education came out from behind the classroom door and rediscovered Social Justice.

Connectedness - isn't it time that education came out from behind the classroom door and Rediscovered Social Justice.