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This paper provides an introduction and framing for this special issue of International Journal of Inclusive Education on pedagogies as an issue of social justice and inclusion. The paper works in the interstices between a sociologically sophisticated reproduction theory and a sociologically naïve school effectiveness framework in suggesting pedagogies can make a difference in terms of schooling as a good in and of itself and as a positional good. It rejects the pessimism of the former and the optimism of the latter and accepts the stance of the US school reform literature that teacher classroom practices have the greatest impact of all school-based factors. However, pedagogies alone cannot make all of the difference, particularly given the vast inequalities which surround schooling and what Ladson-Billings (2006) calls the 'educational debt'. Further, it is argued that considerations of socially just pedagogies also must of necessity involve considerations of curriculum, the purposes of schooling and assessment. The paper then summarizes the ways in which the essays included here provide a scaffold for what socially just pedagogies might look like today, stretching from the public pedagogies of politics to school-based pedagogies in the 'totally pedagogised society' (Bernstein, 2001b). Asking about socially just educational practices requires policy sociology to combine action-oriented and critical perspectives. It demands a respect for practice and a willingness to see educational practices as sites of justice, not merely sites of injustice (Cribb & Gewirtz, 2003, p. 28). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Editorial. French sociologist and internationally renowned public intellectual Pierre Bourdieu died in 2002. He developed a remarkable capacity for critical social analysis and epistemic reflexivity. He also organized a network of progressive social scientists into the group "Raisons d'agir" and launched a publishing house of the same name to bring sociological analyses of contemporary civic issues to a broader public. Bourdieu also succeeded in developing a highly individual brand of sociology. His scholarship was a synthesis of philosophy, social anthropology and sociology underpinned by a passionate commitment to social justice. An acute interest in social inequality and the ways in which it is masked and perpetuated became an enduring contribution preoccupation that influenced his writings.

This article introduces a special issue of the Journal of Youth Studies, dedicated to Professor Andy Furlong, the Journal's founding Editor. The central questions that drove Andy Furlong's scholarship were the relationship between continuity and change in young people's lives and about the place of youth in the reproduction of inequality across generations. These questions have been central to the wider field of Youth Studies that he helped to build. His work provided a powerful example of how to engage with these questions with a strong sense of social justice but the answers he gave, as with all such answers in sociology, are necessarily provisional. The articles collected in this issue bring empirical research and new concepts that build on this legacy, suggesting new ways to capture the experiences of young people across the multiple spheres of their lives and how disadvantage and inequality are made in the context of processes across time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the paradoxes of the democratic project in South Africa is that the combination of political empowerment, organised constituencies of poor people and increasing social sector spending has made minimal impact on increasing equality. Despite an overall macroeconomic framework that emphasises fiscal restraint, social welfare spending has increased in the past 14 years, and dramatically so since 2003. Almost one in four South Africans receives some or other form of grant, and the majority of recipients are women. Indeed, South Africa is regularly described as the developing world's largest and most generous welfare state. I address the extent to which gender inequalities are reduced through public sector spending, asking the question: what is the optimal relationship between social policy and the intrinsic democratic goals of equality, social justice and citizenship? Drawing on Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, the article argues that a focus on social sector spending alone is inadequate to address questions of social justice. Instead, I draw attention to the normative assumptions, discursive environment and institutional context in which social policy is elaborated and implemented. I argue that, in a context in which there is relatively poor infrastructural capacity in the state to ensure that service delivery takes place in fair, consistent and egalitarian ways, households and communities act as shock absorbers of state failures and women's gendered burdens increase, despite formal commitments to gender equality. While women appear to have gained from political empowerment, women politicians did not effectively leverage their position in the state to promote pro-poor policies or to build coalitions to challenge the watering down of early commitments to reducing gender inequalities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT In this paper we consider some contributions made by postmodern perspectives to theoretical and political questions of citizenship and social justice. Postmodern theory is often dismissed as a distraction from pressing questions of material inequality and economic and political exploitation. In the paper we distinguish between 'ludic' or 'spectral' postmodernisms and 'oppositional' or 'resistance' postmodernisms. We suggest that the latter provide theoretical resources for analysing the cultural construction of inequalities and struggles around social inclusion and exclusion. The paper is divided into three sections: in the first, three dominant narratives of modernization are addressed and their implications for concepts of citizenship and social inclusion noted; in the second, some postmodern challenges to these narratives are explored in order to disclose some of the key problems with modern paradigms of citizenship and social justice; in the third section we outline two postmodern approaches to the analysis of social struggles and their contributions to debates about citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the ‘traditional conception of moral responsibility’ authorizes and supports denials of white complicity. First, what is meant by the ‘traditional conception of moral responsibility’ is delineated and the enabling and disenabling characteristics of this view are highlighted. Then, three seemingly good, antiracist discourses that white students often engage in are discussed – the discourse of colour‐blindness, the discourse of meritocracy and the discourse of individual choice – and analysed to show how they are all grounded in the ‘traditional conception of moral responsibility’. The limitations of these discourses are drawn and how these discourses work to conceal white complicity is established. Finally, implications for social justice education are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems designed to ensure that teaching and student learning are of a suitable quality are a feature of universities globally. Quality assurance systems are central to attempts to internationalise higher education, motivated in part by a concern for greater global equality. Yet, if such systems incorporate comparisons, the tendency is to reflect and reproduce inequalities in higher education. Highlighting the European context, we argue that, if higher education is to play a part in tackling social inequalities, we must seek alternative methods to explore pedagogic quality in institutional settings. The sociologist Basil Bernstein's concepts of classification and framing provide an illustration of the potential of sociologically informed, qualitative approaches for exploring and improving higher education pedagogy and also for addressing social justice issues: these two concepts are used to analyse documentation about undergraduate sociology in two universities that have quite different reputations within the English and Northern Irish higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In an era when relativism and questions of modernity have unsettled the premises and goals of the development project, there is a seductive quality to the universalism of Nussbaum's capabilities approach. We query Nussbaum's philosophically based contribution and raise epistemological concerns about her commitment to a list of central human capabilities. We argue that attention to state forms and practices, as well as unequal power relations, must be incorporated into analyses of capability and development. This leads us to support Sen's advocacy of deliberative democracy as a productive space for collectivities and individuals to strive for social justice and equity. Such a focus is necessarily attentive to multiple forms of inequality and domination and is best understood by engaging historically specific analyses of state formations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]