Connecting rights and inequality in education: openings for change

• Published in: Australian Educational Researcher Vol. 51; no. 1; pp. 89 - 101
• Main Authors: Windle, Joel Austin, Fensham, Peter J.
• Format: Journal Article Book Review
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.03.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic Accommodations (Disabilities); Activism; Advocacy; Debates; Economic theory; Education; Education policy; Education reform; Educational Change; Educational inequality; Educational Legislation; Educational Policy; Educational Policy and Politics; Educational Psychology; Educational Vouchers; Equal Education; Government (Administrative Body); Human rights; Parent Rights; Parental rights; Political activism; Private schools; Public opinion; Racial Differences; School Choice; Secondary Schools; Seminars; Sex discrimination; Social activism; State Aid; Student Rights; Teaching and Teacher Education; Australia; United States > US; Educational inequality; Human rights; School choice; Curriculum reform; Diversity
• ISSN: 0311-6999; 2210-5328
• DOI: 10.1007/s13384-022-00564-x

This paper examines 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.