An analysis of the South African model of inclusive education with regard to social justice

Abstract

Inclusive education was formally established in South Africa through White Paper 6 of 2001 with the pertinent aim of including learners who experience barriers to learning into a single and undivided education system. This thrust was accepted by most stakeholders as a means of removing injustices from the past (DoE, 2001). Through the dialogue and document analysis of this article we have attempted not only to introduce the principles of social justice, but also to demonstrate the characteristics of the specific South African model on inclusive education and how this model has developed. We will provide a critical examination of how the meaning of social justice can be viewed with regard to distributive, retributive and recognitive justice and, finally, how the South African model of nuanced inclusive education weighs up against these forms of social justice.

Social Justice Leadership and Family Engagement

“…3 Accordingly, social justice entails respect for different social groups, opportunities for self-development and self-expression, and full participation of groups in decisions that affect them (Gale, 2000). Actors and groups must have a sense of their own agency and of responsibility toward others (Hay & Beyers, 2011). However, marginalized communities may not be prepared or willing to make decisions because prior history suggests that democratic processes may not be fruitful (Faulks, 2006) or because of consequences related to distributive and cultural injustices.…”

Challenges Visually Impaired Students Face in Acquiring Fashion Skills: A Case Study among Visually Impaired Training Institutions in Ghana

“…One of the thinkers who created the Theory of Justice in 1971 is John Rawls. Hey and Beyers (2011) and Humpage and Fleras (2001:39) presented three social justice models. The first is the distributive model of social justice, which is based on the principle that scarce resources should be allocated fairly among all people.…”

“…The retributive model of social justice is the second type. According to Hey and Beyers (2011), the retributive model is about punishing or rewarding people based on their performance. The term "market-individualism" is frequently used to describe the punitive approach to social justice.…”

The challenges of realising inclusive education in South Africa

“…The education of children with disabilities should not be a racial issue or a political topic. Rather, it should be a human rights concern (Hay & Beyers, 2011), a sentiment to which the South African government agreed when it became a signatory to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child (Grobbelaar-Du Plessis & Grobler, 2013), the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of People with Disabilities (UNESCO, 2007) and the Millennium Development Goals (UNESCO, 2000). The inclusive education of a diverse body of children -including those who are diverse in terms of disability, race, gender, religion, language and socioeconomic status -allows children who are different to become acquainted with one another and helps them to discover common ground.…”

“…The adult literacy statistic is also relatively high, at 89%. In contrast, the quality of general education is poor, with an ongoing national conversation about the crisis in education (Hay & Beyers, 2011) marked by violence in schools, dropout, high teenage pregnancy rates, and decreasing high school graduation rates. Even when compared only to other African countries on standardised measures of achievement, South African learners still perform toward the bottom of the spectrum on both mathematics and reading (Van der Berg, 2007).…”