International Schools as Models for Educators to Dismantle Oppression and Promote Social Justice

2022 ◽  
pp. 23-44
Author(s):  
Sharlene M. Fedorowicz
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Contact Zone ◽  
International Schools ◽  
Zero Tolerance ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Body Forces ◽  
Multiple Cultures

International-mindedness is a strategy employed by international schools (IS) to create environments successfully promoting social justice, cultural diversity, and tolerance. The composition of the student body forces accommodation and assimilation of multiple cultures, backgrounds, and languages into one location or contact zone. The purpose of the study is to understand how IS navigate, manage, and lead educators and students from different races, genders, religions, and socioeconomic statuses by promoting equity and creating an environment with zero tolerance for discrimination. However, social justice gaps in education in general still exist, and practical applications and strategies to embrace diversity and equalize the marginalized are lacking. This chapter provides strategies as to how educators worldwide can benefit from approaches used by IS for social justice and tangible strategies used by IS to promote ethical-international-mindedness and decrease discrimination.

scholarly journals When Authenticity Goes Missing: How Monocultural Children’s Literature Is Silencing the Voices and Contributing to Invisibility of Children from Minority Backgrounds

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Helen Adam
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Early Childhood ◽  
Children's Literature ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Day Care ◽  
Children’S Literature ◽  
Long Day ◽  
Day Care Centres ◽  
Book Collections ◽  
The Impact

The importance of recognising, valuing and respecting a child’s family, culture, language and values is central to socially just education and is increasingly articulated in educational policy worldwide. Inclusive children’s literature can support children’s human rights and contribute to equitable and socially just outcomes for all children. However, evidence suggests many educational settings provide monocultural book collections which are counterproductive to principles of diversity and social justice. Further, that educators’ understandings and beliefs about diversity can contribute to inequitable provision and use of diverse books and to inequitable outcomes of book sharing for many children. This paper reports on a larger study investigating factors and relationships influencing the use of children’s literature to support principles of cultural diversity in the kindergarten rooms of long day care centres. The study was conducted within an ontological perspective of constructivism and an epistemological perspective of interpretivism informed by sociocultural theory. A mixed methods approach was adopted, and convergent design was employed interpret significant relationships and their meanings. Twenty-four educators and 110 children from four long day care centres in Western Australia participated. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews, video-based observations, field notes, document analysis and a book audit. This study firstly identified that current book collections in kindergarten rooms of long day care centres promote mono-cultural viewpoints and ‘othering’ of minority groups through limited access to books portraying inclusive and authentic cultural diversity. Secondly, that educators had limited understandings of the role of literature in acknowledging and valuing diversity and rarely used it to promote principles of diversity, resulting in a practice of “othering” those from minority group backgrounds. The key challenges which emerged from the study concerned beliefs, understanding and confidence of educators about diversity and inclusion, and the impact of these on their approaches to promoting principles of diversity through the use of children’s books. This research contributes to discussion on the value of children’s literature in achieving international principles of diversity. These findings have important social justice implications. The outcomes of this study have implications for educators, policy makers, early childhood organisations and those providing higher education and training for early childhood educators.

scholarly journals Diversity and citizenship in the curriculum

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh Starkey
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
National Unity ◽  
Shared Humanity ◽  
Definition Of

This article comments on keynote speeches given by Keith Ajegbo and Audrey Osler. The programme of study for citizenship derived from the Crick report and did not emphasise race equality and national unity for security. Osler argues that the Ajegbo review addressed teaching of ethnic, religious and cultural diversity but did not confront the inadequacies of British democracy or reassert social justice, a sense of shared humanity and a commitment to human rights. Proposing, let alone imposing, a definition of Britishness is futile, but it is possible to promote cosmopolitan patriotism supported by explicit principles, concepts and values.

Health Education as a Tool for Social Justice and Health Equity

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-80
Author(s):  
Sarah Benes
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Health Education ◽  
Health Equity ◽  
Health And Wellness ◽  
Community Settings ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Race And Class ◽  
School And Community ◽  
The Many

All youth deserve access to effective health education that provides them with the tools they need to maintain or improve their health and the health of others. Health education, in school and community settings, can be a tool for addressing social justice and health equity across race and class. Effective health education can increase awareness and understanding of the many factors, including social determinants of health and power structures, that impact health and wellness. More importantly, health education can affect change by empowering students to address not only their own health but the health of others, their communities, and beyond. This chapter reviews the current literature, focusing on practical applications for school and community settings, and presents strategies for implementing health education that supports health and wellness at interpersonal, intrapersonal, and community levels.

Social justice in a tertiary education context: Do we practice what we preach?

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 207-216 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Gair ◽  
Len Baglow
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Social Work ◽  
Tertiary Education ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
Social Justice Education ◽  
Social Work Students ◽  
Student Body ◽  
Core Study ◽  
Just Society ◽  
Work Family

Concepts of social justice have strong historical roots, while more contemporary notions of social justice coincide with human rights, equity, fairness and facilitation of social change with lasting impact. In higher education, evident examples of social justice include widened university access facilitating a diverse student body and graduate workforce who can, in turn, contribute to a more just society. University student identity in past eras has been synonymous with social activism. Equally, social work has a mandate to uphold social justice. Yet tertiary students’ own growing material hardships appear to constitute an unacknowledged injustice. While it is understood that tertiary study may mean short-lived poverty, more recent literature suggests that many university students are suffering mounting debt, increased mental health stress and vulnerability to withdrawal. In this article, the authors ponder social justice education by calling on specific results of a 2015 survey of 2320 Australian social work students. Findings revealed that for many students a juggling act of core study requirements, paid work, family commitments and affording necessities impacted their health, wellbeing and study success. Some astute students identified a disconnect between social work’s staunch social justice agenda and its lack of acknowledgement, empathy or action regarding student hardship. The findings have implications for curricula, universities, accrediting bodies and educators who want to facilitate social justice education.

scholarly journals The linguistics in othering: Teacher educators’ talk about cultural diversity

1970 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Birgitta Nilsen ◽  
Sandra Fylkesnes ◽  
Sølvi Mausethagen
Keyword(s):  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Analytical Study ◽  
Teacher Educators ◽  
Methodological Approach ◽  
Critical Discourse ◽  
Linguistic Awareness ◽  
Binary Oppositions

‘Othering’ can be conceptually defined as the manner in which social group dichotomies are represented in language via binary oppositions of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The article aims to contribute to a methodological approach for differentiating the concept of othering in educational settings. We will introduce new ways of conceptualising othering based on findings from an empirical critical discourse analytical study of how teacher educators talk about the term ‘cultural diversity’. The study is based on transcriptions of interviews with Norwegian teacher educators. The findings illustrate that teacher educators talk about cultural diversity using seven different ways of othering. These ways of othering are important because teacher educators’ discourses influence preservice teachers, in turn, influencing their future teaching in schools. We argue that a critical linguistic awareness of the ways in which pupils are ‘othered’ is an important tool in counteracting social exclusion and promoting social justice and equity.

scholarly journals Assessing Without Labels:Culturally Defined Inclusive Education

2007 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
David F Philott
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Cultural Diversity ◽  
Inclusive Education ◽  
Classroom Teacher ◽  
Canadian Society ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Global Trend ◽  
Canadian Context ◽  
History Of

This paper will explore the place of assessment in a culturally defined paradigm of inclusive education. Given the global trend towards inclusive classrooms, defi ned by a social justice view of learner diversity, the diagnostic/prescriptive medical view of special education is becoming increasingly antiquated. What is emerging is a growing preference towards empowering the classroom teacher with the knowledge and skills to identify the authentic needs of students and to differentiate instruction to respond to those needs. In a contemporary Canadian society characterized by shifting demographics, and increasing linguistic and cultural diversity, this perspective holds particular relevance. In fact, the history of inclusive education parallels, in many ways, the history of aboriginal1 education, as typifi ed in the territory of Nunavut where a stated commitment to establishing a broader view of diversity is creating a system in which children celebrate difference. This paper explores the wealth of literature on this issue and establishes a Canadian context to present Nunavut’s model as being exemplary within this global debate.

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