Reading Education Action Zones

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READING EDUCATION ACTION ZONES

Sally Power, Institute of Education, University of London

Sharon Gewirtz, Open University

Paper presented at the British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, University of Sussex at Brighton, September 2-5 1999

Introduction

In this paper we will explore the conceptualisations of social justice embedded in the education action zones policy. In order to do this, we start by looking at the nature and representation of the social injustices that the initiative is designed to address. We do this through reading policy documents in the light of three forms of injustice – economic injustice, cultural injustice and associational injustice.

The people targeted by EAZs suffer economic, cultural and associational injustices. However, the documentary analysis finds that while EAZs may be based on a more complex understanding of social injustice than many preceding policies, this understanding remains inadequate. Economic injustices are recognised, but cultural and associational injustices are inadequately acknowledged. In addition, there is a mismatch between the remedies proposed in the bids and the problems they are designed to address. Although there are some redistributive and associational measures, these are likely to be superficial. For the most part, it is cultural remedies that are proposed - but the nature of the cultural ‘problem’ to be dealt with is either unacknowledged or misrepresented. Indeed, cultural injustices may actually be compounded by some of the bids.

THE ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK

Economic, cultural and associational injustices

In order to begin to sort out what forms of social justice are embodied in the policy and the bids, we will outline the analytical distinction drawn by Fraser (1997: 13-14) between cultural injustices and economic injustices. Although, as Fraser herself acknowledges, these different injustices rarely exist in their ‘pure’ forms, there are heuristic advantages in disentangling them.

Economic injustices involve:

• Exploitation (having the fruits of one’s labour appropriated for the benefit of others)
• Economic marginalisation (being confined to undesirable, poorly paid work – or having access to none)
• Deprivation (being denied an adequate material standard of living)

Cultural injustices, on the other hand, include:

• Cultural domination (being subjected to patterns of interpretation and communication that are associated with another culture and are alien and/or hostile to one’s own)
• Non-recognition (being rendered invisible by means of … authoritative representational, communicative, and interpretative practices …)
• Disrespect (being routinely maligned or disparaged in stereotypic public cultural representations and/or in everyday life situations.)

Fraser illustrates the distinction through an analysis of what she sees as the different issues faced by ‘exploited classes’ and ‘despised sexualities’. She argues that the working class suffers the economic injustices of exploitation, marginalisation and deprivation and that their disadvantaged position is determined by, indeed is defined by, the political and economic structure of society. Although members of the working class may also suffer cultural injustices, Fraser suggests that these usually arise from the material hardships they experience. According to Fraser, it therefore follows that to alleviate these injustices, a politics of redistribution is required. This may include, among other things, redistributing income, changing the division of labour etc.

The situation of the working class is contrasted with that of gays and lesbians, who, Fraser contends, suffer cultural injustices. They live in a largely heterosexist society in which their own sexuality is either rendered invisible or routinely maligned. Although this may have material consequences, unlike the working class, Fraser argues that they need a politics of recognition rather than redistribution. This may involve positive affirmation of gay and lesbian relationships, challenging the homo-hetero dichotomy, etc.

From Fraser’s analysis it becomes clear that not all injustices are of the same order and that different forms of injustice require different remedies. In the case of ‘exploited classes’ and ‘despised sexualities’, the nature of the remedy is, according to Fraser, relatively straightforward (at least conceptually if not politically or economically). The situation is, she says, more complicated, however, for those groups who suffer both material injustices and cultural injustices. Groups subordinated by gender and race, for instance, are subjected to political-economic differentiation and cultural-valuational differentiation. The remedies for these compounded injustices are not only complex - they may even be contradictory and work against each other. This creates what Fraser refers to as a ‘redistribution-recognition dilemma’ for those groups who face both cultural injustice and economic injustice. The politics of redistribution rests upon different principles from the politics of recognition:

redistributive remedies for political-economic injustice always dedifferentiate social groups ... recognition remedies for cultural-valuational injustice always enhance social group differentiation (Fraser, 1997: 23)

Affirmative and transformative remedies

The dilemma of how to remedy social injustices is further complicated by the nature of the proposed intervention. Fraser offers two alternatives – those aimed at affirmation and those aimed at transformation. These can operate in relation to politics of both redistribution and recognition – as outlined in the matrix below.

AffirmationTransformation

Redistributionthe liberal welfare statesocialism

surface reallocations ofdeep restructuring of

existing goods to existingrelations of production;

groups; supports groupblurs group differentiation;

differentiation; cancan help remedy some forms

generate misrecognitionof misrecognition

Recognitionmainstream multiculturalismdeconstruction

surface reallocations of respectdeep restructuring of

to existing identities of existingrelations of recognition;

groups; supports groupdestabilizes group

differentiationdifferentiation

We have reservations about some of Fraser’s arguments. Most crucially we would take issue with Fraser’s contention that a politics of redistribution alone can alleviate the injustices experienced by working-class people and would want to argue that both a politics of redistribution and a politics of recognition are necessary.[1] However, despite these reservations, Fraser’s thesis is important because it alerts us to possible tensions between economic and cultural remedies. We return to Fraser’s distribution-recognition dilemma later in the paper.

But at this point we want to introduce a third category of injustice that appears to be somewhat sidelined by Fraser’s economic/cultural distinction. We refer to this third form of injustice – which underpins both economic and cultural injustice – as associational injustice. By this we mean patterns of association amongst individuals and amongst social groups which prevent some people from participating fully in decisions which effect the conditions within which they live and act. There are very few schools within the UK where students and/or parents are able to participate in any routine and meaningful way in decision-making processes. Moreover, teachers generally hold subordinate positions in the hierarchical decision-making structures that tend to operate in schools. And, as central government takes more and more control over what goes on in schools, even head teachers are increasingly excluded from key decisions about the aims, content and methods of schooling. However, research suggests that working-class and black parents tend to be particularly marginalised from decision-making in schools because the culture as well as structure of meetings disadvantages these groups (Vincent and Martin, 1999). For example, they are less likely to become governors and those who do become governors are less likely to speak or be listened to (although see Reynolds (1999) for a discussion of the successful strategies some black mothers have used for challenging and resisting racism in schools). This reflects a more general position of marginalisation and powerlessness for these groups. We would argue that associational remedies need to be pursued both as ends in themselves and as means to remedying economic and cultural injustices.

The populations targeted by education action zones are geographically and socially diverse. They range from rural and semi-rural communities to densely populated urban environments in cities and conurbations. Unlike educational priority areas, which were identified on the basis of an index of social disadvantage, zones had to put themselves forwards for consideration. This means that the successful applications do not necessarily cover the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. Nevertheless, all of the current zones appear to be high in the DETR index of social deprivation, suffering from high unemployment, low income, poor housing and health. Many have disproportionately high levels of lone parents (mothers, in particular), refugees and asylum seekers. As might be expected, the inner-city zones also have high proportions of households categorised as ethnic minority. There can be little doubt that these populations suffer economic, cultural and associational injustices. So to what extent are these three forms of injustice being recognised and addressed in EAZs?

ECONOMIC, CULTURAL AND ASSOCIATIONAL INJUSTICES IN EDUCATION ACTION ZONES

New Labour, education action zones and social exclusion

The conventional welfarist approach associated with the old left concentrated largely on economic injustices, putting in place redistributive measures and largely ignoring the cultural and associational dimensions of welfare. However, within New Labour’s welfare policy there does appear to be some evidence of an acknowledgement of the economic, cultural and associational dimensions of disadvantage, although all three dimensions are ambiguously treated.

Ambiguities associated with conceptions of economic justice and some of the tensions within New Labour’s approach towards different kinds of injustice are reflected in the language of ‘social exclusion’. Social exclusion, which plays a central role in New Labour discourse, can have very different connotations depending on who is talking and in what context. Ruth Levitas (1998) has usefully identified three contrasting discourses of social exclusion, for which she uses the acronyms, RED, MUD and SID. RED is a redistributive, egalitarian discourse revolving around ideas of citizenship and social rights. As Ruth Lister has pointed out,

The primary objective here is social justice in contrast to the other two discourses, which are activated by the primary objective of social cohesion and distinguished by a lack of concern about wider inequalities (Lister 1999: 3).

MUD, an individualistic and moralistic discourse, uses the stigmatising language of the ‘underclass’ and ‘dependency culture’ to construct the ‘socially excluded’. This is quite the opposite of Fraser’s conceptualisation of cultural justice, outlined in the previous section, which rests on the valorisation rather than stigmatisation of subordinated social groups, and therefore MUD can in itself be viewed as a form of cultural injustice. SID is a socially integrationist discourse that focuses primarily on exclusion from paid work. Again, this discourse itself can be seen to produce cultural injustices in that it devalorises the unpaid domestic work performed largely by women. Lister argues that,

The Government’s approach to tackling social exclusion reflects an uneasy amalgam of SID, MUD and RED. Although it has, at times, deployed a definition of social exclusion in the RED tradition, all too often it talks the MUD language of ‘welfare dependency’ and ‘handouts’. Its policies are firmly rooted in SID, most notably in their identification of paid work, supported by education and training, as the key route to social inclusion (Lister 1999: 4).

Lister also points out that notions of cultural justice have been hitherto largely excluded from debates around social exclusion. (Although she notes Geoff Andrews’ (1997) argument that there is a potential for the concept of social exclusion to address claims of difference and diversity better than the older discourse of equality (Lister 1998)). Ideas of associational justice have also tended to be excluded from debates around social exclusion.

All three discourses of social exclusion identified by Levitas have been evident in the presentation of the EAZs policy. Thus the policy has been presented as one which will redistribute resources to disadvantaged areas and as one which will promote social inclusion by equipping students with work-related skills. And, as we shall see, at a local level, elements of the MUD discourse are also there. In contrast, and perhaps unsurprisingly, given the prevalence of MUD-style language, notions of cultural justice have been less evident in the presentation of the EAZ policy. However, ideas of cultural justice have not been altogether absent from New Labour’s education policy as a whole. More specifically, the recently published QCA/DfEE (1999) curriculum review contains a statement of values that the government wishes to promote in education. According to this statement, the curriculum should

enable pupils to challenge discrimination and stereotyping. It should … develop their knowledge and understanding of different beliefs and cultures, including an appreciation of their diversity, and of their influence on individuals and societies … [and it should help pupils] form and maintain worthwhile and satisfying relationships based on respect for themselves and others.

Yet there seems to be a tension between the importance given to notions of respect and recognition evident in the curriculum review and New Labour’s advocacy of league tables, selection and setting, which appear to encourage the differential valuing of different cultural and social groups. Thus while some of New Labour’s discourses and policies would seem to foster misrecognition and disrespect, others, like its curriculum recommendations, would seem to be pulling in the opposite direction by supporting a politics of recognition.

Finally, there are tensions within New Labour’s treatment of associational justice. Some of these are exemplified in Blair’s Fabian pamphlet, The Third Way: New Politics for the New Century. On the one hand, the pamphlet includes a clear commitment to remedying associational injustice, where Blair argues that ‘The democratic impulse needs to be strengthened by finding new ways to enable citizens to share in decision-making that affects them’ (Blair 1998: 15). Yet at the same time the pamphlet is infused with a moral authoritarian tone that would seem to undercut Labour’s more humanistic commitment to associational justice. For example, Blair argues that ‘Strong communities depend on shared values’. He goes on to suggest that these values are associated with particular duties, which ‘we [i.e. the government] should not hesitate to encourage and even enforce … as we are seeking to do with initiatives such as our ‘home-school contracts’ between schools and parents’ (12). The same kinds of tensions are evident in the EAZ policy. For, on the one hand, it aims to create new forms of participation in local education decision-making through the establishment of education action forums, made up of headteachers, governors, parents and representatives of local social and business communities. Yet on the other, the DfEE have tightly specified the kinds of initiatives to be attempted thus circumventing the opportunities for authentic participation in decisions about what is to be done in the zones.

Some of these tensions between the humanistic and authoritarian elements of New Labour’s ‘authoritarian humanism’ (Gewirtz 2000) are also evident within the EAZ bids themselves. In addition, the bids appear to contain misconceptions about the nature of the difficulties being experienced by the populations they are designed to help and about the resolution of these difficulties. In the next section, some of these tensions and misconceptions are explored by analysing the successful applications for zone status from Nairton, Southbridge and Washford.[2]

Economic injustices

The zone applications are very explicit about the scale of poverty and social deprivation in their respective areas. In accordance with DfEE (1998) guidance for applicants, each bid begins by outlining where the zone stands on various indices of social disadvantage. And it is not the case that the poor in these areas are presented as the ‘feckless’ and/or ‘workshy’ depicted by some Conservative politicians during the 1970s and 1980s (and perhaps implicit in some of New Labour’s social policies). Indeed, in terms of Halsey’s (1972) three alternative explanations of the sources of poverty[3] commonly put forward in connection with the earlier EPA policy, most of the zones take the most radical position and locate the source of poverty within the changing structure of employment opportunities.

With reference to Fraser’s examples of economic injustice, there are few allusions to exploitative practices, but there are frequent references to economic marginalisation and deprivation. Poverty is largely accounted for in terms of unemployment, which in turn is explained in terms of economic and industrial decline rather than individual failings. For example, Washford’s bid comments on the extent to which decline in the local industries has led to high levels of ‘out-commuting’ which inhibits access to employment: ‘Low income levels, low car ownership and a dependence on part-time working make travel costs and times prohibitive’. Southbridge also blames the high unemployment rates on the decline of traditional industries in the area.

Environmental deprivation is also mentioned as a significant factor. The Nairton bid talks of the ‘lack of high quality community, leisure and retail facilities’, ‘relatively little green space’ and the ‘stark and uninspiring’ environment of the schools. It also points out that nearly one half of the children in the zone’s wards are deemed to live in ‘unsuitable’ accommodation.

In short, and in contrast to some of New Labour’s other policies and pronouncements, the bids make an explicit connection between opportunity structures, social exclusion and low educational achievement. They make it quite clear that economic injustices lead to educational inequalities.

However, while all of the zones mention the high number of single parent families in their area, the issue of employment and welfare practices that discriminate against women is unacknowledged. Washford is unusual in citing the lack of affordable childcare as a ‘substantial barrier for the unemployed’. But nowhere in any of the bids we’ve analysed is there any specific reference to gender inequalities.