[Part 1 of 3] Is social justice negotiable? The political and cultural interpretations of social justice

Adapted excerpt from keynote given at the 2022 Alliance for International Education conference: Educating for Peace and Social Justice: The Role of International Education.

Part one [Part 2 here and part 3 here ]

The title I was given for this talk How should schools respond to contentious issues in peace and social justice? is such an intriguing one, because as soon as we get beyond the flippant ‘very, very carefully and very, very determinedly’, even defining some key terms here will take us into complex and contested territory, even before we name any specific issues, even before we get to issues of cultural difference and diversity, which will be my main focus. 

And the reason, of course, is that there are many conceptions of what international schools should do and what they actually do. Are they agents of social change? If so, to what end… as an activist element to continue the long, slow and uncertain march towards greater equity and justice? As one cog in the wheel of a rather hegemonic economic globalisation? As gateways for social mobility? Or as gatekeepers for those who benefit from our heavily stratified world? Might some of these categories even overlap sometimes?

With so many different schools in many different circumstances, in many national and international structures the collective answer to all these contradictory questions is, as a simple matter of description, ‘yes’. The rather more interesting question, however, is not the descriptive one, but the normative one about noble purposes and causes worth pursuing, about beliefs to inspire our children and students, about devoting lifetimes and careers to, as many of us here today have done, and are doing. As part of the Alliance for International Education, we all likely share sympathy with the IB Mission and CIS Mission, and we chose to dial in today for this seminar on peace – so it may well be that we have a reasonably common understanding of what we think education should do. Those should be reflected in school Missions, so to start us off, here are five mission statements from international schools that seem to converge and that have a significant degree of overlap.

• to inspire children to become global citizens through an inquiry-based learning environment of total immersion in multiple languages and cultures.
• to prepare today’s learners to confidently embrace challenges as adaptable, empathetic global citizens who will be active contributors for a more sustainable world.
• to make education a force to unite people, nations and cultures for peace and a sustainable future.
• to develop inquiring, knowledgeable and caring young people who help to create a better and more peaceful world through intercultural understanding and respect.
• to inspire the development of global citizens through high quality international education: connecting ideas, cultures, and educators from every corner of the world.

Now I wholeheartedly and unambiguously endorse these goals, and it is wonderful that these days such lofty aims are a shared endeavour and not just the outlandish ideas of a few crackpots, as it might have seemed 50 years ago. 

[As an aside, though, just to puncture any complacency we might feel here, I came across this powerful question from Hannah Arendt, in Reflections on Little Rock 1959. She asked: Have we now come to the point where it is the children who are being asked to change or improve the world? And do we intend to have our political battles fought out in the school yards? I think that’s worth spending some time on, though not, alas, here]

It is of course important to ask ourselves if these Missions are genuine north-stars or just marketing slogans. In a world where every experience, service, product seems to be given a transcendent purpose (even underwear seems to be branded as an identity statement) there is a real possibility that we are seduced here; allowed – indeed encouraged – to feel good about ourselves by noble sentiment without critical examination. We all know the tensions that exist between the ‘global’ in global citizen as we understand it, and the ‘global’ in globalisation as billions experience it. The truth we all know is that we are part of, we are enabled by, and enablers of, the very systems that we seek to change through education aligned with these Mission statements. 

Some of the tensions are rather more apparent in some other, school Missions:

• …to become a well-educated, productive adult who will be able to cope with an ever-changing world.

The ‘productive’ and ‘able to cope’ seem to suggest an alignment with dominant ideologies of power and capital here; in this notion our students almost seem to be units of production, rather than moral loci, and might fit into a global machine without challenging it too much. This is quite a rare statement – perhaps unusually honest. More often though, we see ideas such as..

• … to develop global-minded, compassionate, collaborative students inspired to learn, take risks, and lead change in the world.
• …inspires each and every student to discover their strengths within a community of future leaders.

The word ‘lead’ is very much in vogue; rather like ‘learning’. Nothing wrong with either, but both can hide much; and while I might look at these approvingly, I might also note that ‘lead change’ from within a ‘community of future leaders’ is actually fairly neutral with respect to peace and social justice. It could mean to support, grow and enhance current social structures or it could mean to revolt against them, undermine them, dismantle them. So again, there are things hidden here.

• … to be the leading international schools group of quality and scale, with schools of choice recognised across local communities and the global education sector for amazing learning, ambition and growth.

This one makes explicit the business aspect of most international schools. Just as most national schools are set up in national structures, so most international schools these days are either explicitly or implicitly part of the international system of globally mobile capital, and many or most international schools are required to make a return on the capital. This has major structural implications for not just how we can serve our students, but which students we can serve. In Rachel Engel’s recent ‘Pathways to global citizenship in Asia Pacific Region’ paper, she notes that “Hong Kong’s average IBDP school tuition makes up 44% of the national GDP per capita, Japan, 64%, Cambodia, 1379%, the Philippines, 577%, and Vietnam, 1087%, respectively. If…[She argues] the IBDP schools in the Asia Pacific region are pathways to ‘global citizenship’ as advertised, then it becomes clear who exactly is allowed to participate as a ‘citizen’ of a ‘global society’ – wealthy foreign expatriates first and wealthy local families second.”

This will be a factor, perhaps a limiting factor, perhaps the limiting factor, not just in who we can educate, but in all manner of systemic responses, especially to controversial issues.

I am not criticising schools that are business-oriented – and just to be clear, I do not see only ills in capitalism. We can, however, ask if international schools are all in the same boat, or if some have genuinely inspirational missions which inform daily practice. My own school, UWCSEA, we strive to that end, though of course we know there there is always more to do to close the gaps that exist. Every school exists in a context, and cannot be blamed for doing so; furthermore any school which attempts to explicitly and directly subvert the system which created it, is likely to face internal and external crises rather quickly, and possibly catastrophically. But that said, when we look around the world at the challenges facing us – climate change, conflict, refugee crisis, the pandemic, poverty, dis-armament/ rearmament, governance crisis, international law, equity and justice, clean energy, cyberthreats – it is hard to be satisfied with what, say 50 years ago, might have seemed adequate, but which now seem a little naive, or at least vague:

• …to challenge children, of all abilities, to achieve excellence in a wide range of academic, cultural and sporting activities.
• … to be… a beacon of truth and light, through the holistic development of our students.

I know this structural criticism is hardly new, but it bears repeating. International educator Joe Holroyd gives fascinating examples. I am sure you can think of more :

• He cites one example where ‘collaborative leadership’ was often a euphemism for standardisation; ‘student-centred learning’ often meant sustaining top exam results. It was business-as-usual, with more ambitious, pretentious Mission Statements 
• Another example he reports that….in a local region with awful public education standards, many living near the poverty line and a whole slew of other humanitarian issues associated with high wealth disparities and an entrenched lack of social mobility, by far the most visible and celebrated philanthropic activity in one school is caring for dogs.

With that background, having raised a few questions around school purpose, we can move from the series question How should schools respond to contentious issues in peace and social justice? to my specific sub-topic brief:

Is social justice negotiable? The political and cultural interpretations of social justice and their implications for international education: An exploration of the extent to which the term social justice has universal implications as opposed to being a political or social construct that is determined with locally determined parameters and constraints.

[Part 2 here and part 3 here ]