Less-standard claims to justice through the lens of media debates on minority education

Dorota Lepianka

doi:10.1177/14778785211028400

Abstract

The coexistence, not always peaceful, of multiple and often rival, conceptions of justice in education policy and practice is well recognized and problematized in the academic literature. Relatively little is known, however, about what kind of justice-related considerations occupy the ‘public mind’ and/or inform what Nancy Fraser calls ‘folk paradigms of justice’. The current article seeks to shed light on the public construction of the ‘what’ of justice in the realm of education by analysing selected debates on minority education politics that occur in news and social media in five European countries. Fraser’s tripartite model of justice as redistribution, recognition and representation constituted the starting point of the investigation. The results of a qualitative analysis of selected media content show that while Fraser’s framework resonates well with the popular understandings of justice, the tripartite typology is not exhaustive in accounting for all justice claims evoked in the public domain. In the light of the debates analysed, three types of ‘alternative’ claims seem particularly relevant for theorizing justice in education and/or seeking legitimacy for education policy: claims that appeal to civil rights and liberties, claims that appeal to procedural justice and claims that appeal to epistemic justice.

Highlights

While in most countries of the Global North there is political consensus that social injustice in education needs addressing, there is no clarity as to what justice in education should entail or how it could be achieved (Blackmore, 2013; Clark, 2006; Francis et al, 2017)
Alternative claims to justice such as claims based on civil rights and liberties, claims to procedural justice, epistemic justice, historical justice and justice as redress, as well as claims that appeal to capabilities often run across the three ideal-typical facets of redistribution, recognition and representation
I will limit the discussion to three very different types of claims: claims that appeal to procedural justice, which run across Fraser’s tripartite model; claims that appeal to civil rights and liberties, which represent a relatively tangible, legalistic thinking about justice; and the often less palpable claims that appeal to epistemic justice, understood as fair treatment in issues of knowledge, understanding and participation in practices of communication and deliberation. (Dis)connection between these alternative claims and Fraser’s theorizing are discussed

Summary

Introduction

While in most countries of the Global North there is political consensus that social injustice in education needs addressing, there is no clarity as to what justice in education should entail or how it could be achieved (Blackmore, 2013; Clark, 2006; Francis et al, 2017). A good example is a study by Mills et al (2016) that extends Fraser’s tripartite model with affective justice (Lynch, 2012) and contributive justice (Sayer, 2009) or work by Tikly and Barrett (2011) that builds upon the ideas of Fraser as well as the capabilities approach of Sen and Nussbaum Such conceptual explorations reflect very much the spirit of Fraser’s theorizing and her calls for staying open and hermeneutically charitable to ‘non-standard views of the “what” of justice’ (Fraser, 2009: 58), especially in times of ‘abnormal justice’, when – as today – disputes about justice transverse ‘multiple discursive arenas, some formal, some informal, some mainstream, some subaltern’ Such conceptual explorations reflect very much the spirit of Fraser’s theorizing and her calls for staying open and hermeneutically charitable to ‘non-standard views of the “what” of justice’ (Fraser, 2009: 58), especially in times of ‘abnormal justice’, when – as today – disputes about justice transverse ‘multiple discursive arenas, some formal, some informal, some mainstream, some subaltern’ (p. 52)

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