Sometimes unfair is fair’: New Zealand HPE teachers’ perceptions of social justice.
This paper draws on data from online semi-structured interviews with 19 HPE teachers to explore how HPE teachers in Aotearoa/New Zealand perceive the concept of social justice and teaching for and about social justice. The results show that participants perceive that social justice is a concept that is important, but complex and understood in different ways. The participants identifying how they take action for social justice through pedagogies for social justice focus on representation of student voices, recognition of differences, and redistribution of the resources.
The results show that participants perceive that social justice is a concept that is important, but it is complex and understood in different ways. A quest for equity, fairness, or inclusion were the most common understandings. The participants identifying how they take action for social justice through pedagogies for social justice that reflect a focus on representation of student voices, recognition of differences, and redistribution of the resources.
Examples include
"I know there are a few kids in my class who come from really poor households and like it’s too much for them to get gear or sometimes they might get [stay at] their mom’s house or their dad’s house or another house"
"We’ve got quite a few neurodiverse learners at our school. And a lot of them have different needs that need to be met for them to, like, thrive in the classroom. So one of them at the moment that we had a big discussion on the use of headphones to block out noise … But other kids are like, Oh, how come they get to wear headphones? And so trying to stay equitable, because if I say, okay, no one has headphones on, you know, it’s not, it’s not helping that learner who does need access to that. And so it is quite hard. Being fair means that sometimes kids need extra support"
"I think relationships is number one. I always feel like I have to have a good relationship or like a positive relationship because without a good foundation, I find it a lot harder to teach and I feel like there is not a lot of interactions and they don’t really give me much"
"… the students at the moment they go into the community, and they take on board some little projects. It is very much student-driven. So they are in groups, they decide on areas of inequity that they don’t think are fair and lack social justice, and they will take steps to create further social justice"
"We have got a student focus group … we meet every term to report back and tell us what we are doing right and what we are doing wrong. At the end of every unit, we survey all the kids with specific questions"
"… to treat everybody fairly, you have got to try and actually treat them unfairly. So that is an approach that I try to use, and I try to be transparent with my students as well in my classes that I’m doing that because kids do tend to view social justice as everybody is treated the exact same all the time …"
"I think sharing power with students makes learning responsive and meaningful to them and who they are, and if that is happening in your lessons, then I feel that you have got opportunities for equitable access to privilege and knowledge in what you are teaching with these kids"
The findings suggest that affirmative actions within long standing social structures are more prevalent than more transformative pedagogies that challenge underlying beliefs and values.
