Multi-dimensional (in)justice and socially just pedagogies: the case of a father with a child with disability

Abstract

In this article, we intend to contribute to the debate of educational justice, especially for children with special needs, challenging those theories that focus only on unidimensional aspects. Using Gewirtz's multidimensional model of justice and the frame of socially just pedagogies, we analyse the case of Oscar, a father of a child with Down Syndrome, who is looking for a school for his son. The case develops in the Chilean educational system context, which is known by its neoliberal policy frame and its highly stratified structure. For this reason, a new inclusion law and, specifically, a new school admission system were implemented in 2015 and 2017 respectively, to generate a fairer and more equal school admission policy frame. Therefore, our theoretical proposition has practical implications, in policy terms, and analytical ones. We propose to add two dimensions of educational justice at the time we analyse Oscar’s case: first, educational justice must embrace injustices that are not necessarily experienced in formal educational spaces; we call this the multi-spatiality dimension of justice. Second, we propose a multi-temporality analysis of educational justice, one that considers, as socially just pedagogies have established, a focus on the future. In this case the educational policy and discourse promotes a pre-established and normalised future for children, one that is problematic for children with disabilities, whose parents, like Oscar, have a more urgent focus on the present.