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The problem of the public good and the implications for researching educational policies for social justice

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Educational Research for Social Justice

Part of the book series: Education Science, Evidence, and the Public Good ((EDUS,volume 1))

Abstract

Chapter 1 opened a discussion on what is meant by social justice in education, and the issues involved in defining this, and what research directed towards this would look like. We identified different types of potential injustices, and the subsequent chapters examined various of these in turn, in a range of educational contexts, through the prisms of research directed towards finding policy initiatives that might counter the effects of particular inequities. But our contributors also noted that the notion of the public good was rarely defined, and was unlikely to be agreed on. This concluding chapter takes up this challenge, and seeks to examine what the public is, what the public good might be, and who should determine this. We then turn to the implications of this for the relationship between educational researchers working towards social justice and education policy makers.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    State schools in England were all owned by a Local Educational Authority (LEA) or the Diocesan Board of a Church. Since 2011, these bodies have been obliged, at the request of the School’s Governors or at the direction of the Secretary of State, to grant a 125 year lease at a token minimal annual rent, to an Academy Trust that is independent of the LEA. By 2019, 72% of secondary students, and 30% of primary students, were in Academies or ‘Free’ schools (Roberts and Danechi 2019).

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    Alistair Ross

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    Alistair Ross

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Ross, A. (2021). The problem of the public good and the implications for researching educational policies for social justice. In: Ross, A. (eds) Educational Research for Social Justice . Education Science, Evidence, and the Public Good, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-62572-6_14

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