The potential determinants of young people's sense of justice: an international study

Abstract

Additional information:Use policyThe full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. AbstractThis paper uses reports from 13,000 grade 9 pupils in five countries to examine issues such as whether they were treated fairly at school, trust their teachers and adults in wider society, are willing to sacrifice teacher attention to help others, and support the cultural integration of recent immigrants. Using such reports as 'outcomes' in a multistage regression model, it is clear that they are largely unrelated to school-level pupil mix variables. To some extent, these outcomes are stratified by pupil and family background in the same way for all countries. However, the largest association is with pupil reported experience of interactions with their teachers. Teachers appear to be a major influence on young peoples' sense of justice, and the principles they apply in deciding whether something is fair. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which schools and teachers could take advantage of this finding.

Justice, belonging and trust among Israeli middle school students

“…Several studies have suggested that just relations in varied contexts (e.g., workplace, politics) are positively associated with trust, especially social‐interpersonal trust (Tyler & Belliveau, ; Svallfors, ; Fetchenhauer & Wittek, ). Likewise, Gorard () found that experiencing ‘fair’ teachers is related to a variety of outcomes, including trust and the justice principles that should be adapted in the distribution of various goods. It is therefore reasonable to assume that sense of justice in school will contribute to the development of trust.…”

Experiencing fairness at school: An international study

“…To assist and illustrate, for each of the questionnaire themes, the paper also presents some examples of relevant open comments given by pupils in England (the only European country in the study to collect such data from all schools as a matter of course). More complex analyses with the same dataset include factor analysis, with no clear results (Gorard and Smith 2010), and logistic regression confirming and extending the results here (Gorard 2011). First, the paper summarises what pupils report about their relationships with teachers, leaving discussion of what the results might mean for the formation of a sense of justice to later sections.…”

Can programmes like Philosophy for Children help schools to look beyond academic attainment?

“…Children not only demand fair and just treatment from others but they also need to experience a variety of models where fairness and justice are served. This includes school scenarios such as equal opportunities to speak (Corden 2000), teachers' appropriate respect for all children (Gorard and Smith 2010), appropriate feedback and encouragement (Burnett 2002), rewards for a wider set of skills and performance (Harlen 2006), freedom to choose tasks and times (Gorard 2011) and required emotional support (Protheroe 2007). Pro-social behaviour is only encouraged when children see it in adults, and learn to trust adults in schools on the basis of their fair treatment and just values.…”