Connecting rights and inequality in education: openings for change

Abstract

This paper examines to the openings for educational change enabled by framing inequality through the concept of rights, considering how variations of this framing have emerged historically and in current debates. Taking as our starting point the 1970 publication Rights and Inequality in Australian Education, we suggest that it is important to pay attention to the ways in which rights gain force within social action and through demands made by differently constituted publics. In the 1960s and 1970s, a right to educational equality garnered greater recognition, prompting moves towards needs-based funding and curriculum diversification, led by the Commonwealth Schools Commission. These moves were responsive to social movements that helped to shape new publics. In a second and more politically conservative moment, rights and inequality were increasingly separated in policies influenced by neoliberalism. We argue that the strategies currently adopted by Indigenous scholar-activists are promoting a return to a rights-based perspective, which is distinctive in casting inequality as ontological and epistemic violence.

Curriculum, democracy and pedagogies for justice: a collective futures dialogue

“…In drawing attention to ontological and epistemic violence, we call for a much broader reworking of educational and foundational rights. Generic notions of inequality do not recognise the nuanced and everyday practices of oppression that include racism, sexism, classism, ableism and identity discrimination as well as cultural and linguistic genocide (Windle & Fensham, 2022). Whilst Indigenous movements generate acknowledgement of cultural and linguistic rights as well as the valuing of Indigenous epistemologies and embodied ways of being, more recent debates highlight LGBTQI communities and rights to protection from discrimination.…”

“…Following Biesta (2014), we advocate for a prioritising of pedagogies that work 'at the intersection of education and human togetherness' (p. 23) where a rights-based curriculum and pedagogy can be enacted, and attention is drawn to the links between rights and inequalities as well as the power of affect and embodiment in creating human connection. Bringing bodies together in space and time creates possibilities for dialogic engagement and democratic and rights-based expression (Windle & Fensham, 2022). In coming to understand the collective forces of affect, we offer alternative pedagogies including those that utilise the body's right to sense, feel, respond and imagine (Garrett, 2022).…”

Exploring structural injustices in school education: a study on intergenerational repair

“…Several studies indicate that when older people establish connections with their children, it leads to an enhanced level of satisfaction and understanding (Carolan and Lardier, 2018;Giraudeau and Bailly, 2019;Geven and van de Werfhorst, 2020). Education and inequality have been a critical concern in schools since the 1960s (Windle and Fensham, 2024). Research has focused on topics including socioeconomic class, race, ethnicity, age, and gender inequalities in schools, the reasons behind educational inequalities, and the impact of education on either reducing or perpetuating these inequalities (Merolla and Jackson, 2019).…”

AHRC Efforts Action to Reduce Racial Discrimination Cases Occur in Australia

“…A total of 743 complaints in 2015-2016, then increased slightly with a total of 784 complaints in 2016-2017 and again decreased with a total of 616 complaints in 2017-2018. (Windle & Fensham, 2022)…”