Understanding Social Justice in Rural Education, 1st ed. 2016

This book explores what social justice looks like for rural schools in Australia. The author challenges the consensus that sees the distribution of resources as the panacea for the myriad challenges faced by rural schools and argues that the solution to inequality and injustice in rural settings has to take into account other important dimensions of social justice such as recognition and association. These include teachers? concerns for issues of power, respect, and participation in their work that extend to policy-making processes and implementation; students? post-school aspirations and, finally, parents? hopes and fears for their children?s futures and the sustainability of their community. The book brings together political and social theory with education and youth studies, provides new insights about the complex nature of schooling in rural places, and makes a strong connection between schooling and the people and communities it serves.   

Chapter 1 – Introduction

Chapter 2 – Understanding Rural Communities and Education

Chapter 3 – Rural Teaching and Learning in Neoliberal Times

Chapter 4 – The Idea of Social Justice

Chapter 5 – Social Justice in Rural Schooling

Chapter 6 – The Metamorphosis of Social Justice in the Present and the Future

Chapter 7 – Discourses and Practices that Pluralize Social Justice

Hernán Cuervo is Senior Lecturer in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne, Australia. 

Draws on data from a research study conducted over a period of four years (2006-2010) that aimed to understand the meaning of social justice for rural school participants in two Victorian schools