Abstract
The meaning of social justice for educators who work with “at-risk” youth was explored through interviews structured to contrast the social justice thinking of John Rawls (A theory of justice. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1971) in A Theory of Justice with that of Friedrich Hayek (Law, legislation and liberty: the mirage of social justice, vol 2. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1976) in The Mirage of Social Justice. The study was conducted with educators who work or have worked in California’s San Joaquin Valley and included a scaffolding of interviews beginning at the CA Department of Education through teachers who work directly with students. The contexts of the interviews included current educational policies such as zero tolerance, no child left behind, school choice and charter school initiatives, safe schools and resiliency strategies, and an apparent historical shift in educational thinking about social justice over the past four decades. Also, the rates of prison incarceration in the United States was discussed in the context of a quantitative study that had empirically examined the attitudes of adult leaders and student leaders on “control strategies” (zero tolerance policies) vs. “teaching and learning” (resiliency) strategies. A model of ethical thinking that included the concepts of caring, justice, and critique was presented to interviewees. The ethical concepts were explained as being connected to finding social justice and used to structure the interviews and final analysis. Analysis was completed utilizing the concepts of “street-level bureaucracy” and “silencing” in a final search for social justice that proved difficult to find.
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This qualitative research project truly represents the spirit of “grounded theory” as the interviewees and others participated throughout. Each read drafts throughout and approved them before the final draft was submitted. My perceptions and choice of quotes were commented on, discussed, criticized, and eventually agreed on collectively by interviewees and other participants.
I want to thank Dr. Ira Bogotch, former dissertation cochair, for contacting me about this project, and Dr. Caroline Cody, dissertation cochair, for her help to pull the final draft together. I also want to thank Dr. Lynn Beck, University of the Pacific, and Dr. Fran Chadwick, CA State University, San Marcos, for their encouragement, criticisms, and insight as I moved through a process of conceptualization and writing. I also want to thank the CRESS Center for California’s Third Annual Equity Summit – Equity, Education & Incarceration: What is California’s Future? March 24, 2012, UC Davis, School of Education. This summit provided me with thoughtful information and numerous opportunities for reflection and reanalysis of this research.
Finally, I want to thank the interviewees for their encouragement and willingness to reread drafts and make comments about the use of their quotes as I moved forward with revised iterations. I want to mention three interviewees by name: (1st) Mr. Dan Sackheim, Consultant, California Department of Education; (2nd) Mr. Paul Jacobs, Consultant, California Department of Education; and (3rd) Dr. Tanner-McBrien for her interview and for sharing insights about her dissertation with me. Other interviewees read earlier drafts and participated throughout but chose not to be mentioned.
Monty J. Thornburg, Ph.D., (Author)
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Thornburg, M.J. (2014). Searching for Social Justice: An Examination of the Views of Alternative School Educators in the San Joaquin Valley of California. In: Bogotch, I., Shields, C. (eds) International Handbook of Educational Leadership and Social (In)Justice. Springer International Handbooks of Education, vol 29. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6555-9_38
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