Redefining Social Justice: From Heroic Visions to Deep Democracy in Education
While reading Furman (2004) on my flight back from Montreal, I was struck by one key aspect in the "Ethic of Community." It was Furman's juxtaposition of two different kinds of social justice: one being heroic and individually focused, and the other being community centered and stakeholder focused. Furman explains that while both forms of social justice are needed and are valuable, leaders defaulting to the individualistic and heroic way end up becoming frustrated and burnt out because they struggle immensely to achieve their vision, attempting to convert nonbelievers to become believers of their agenda.
Meanwhile, those engaging in community-centered social justice are able to utilize deep democracy, where stakeholders are listened to in open inquiry which allow for unique solutions to be reached depending on the context. Personally, I had always seen social justice as the individual and heroic way, where champions and warriors advocate for the marginalized and affect equitable change in a system. From seeing others and personal experience, I also understood how challenging it could be to conduct such work.
However, Furman (2004) allowed me to realize that true social justice cannot be realized in existing power dynamics and organizational hierarchies because the status-quo maintains inequitable power structures even after changes were made. As Heifetz, Grashow, and Linsky (2009) explain, it is a myth that current systems are broken, because they exist and continue to operate since it works in some way for the many. Perhaps when current systems tweak themselves to become more equitable in miniscule ways and absorb new ideas of equity and inclusion to appease the vocal minorities, the system proves itself to be functioning well.
But I cannot get rid of the feeling that these are simply band-aid solutions that continue to be plastered onto the bleeding wounds of outdated organizations struggling to maintain themselves until what's left of the systems are the web of band-aids holding themselves together. Like Machado de Oliveira (2020) says, the diseased portions of the olive tree must be cut off, but you realize that the disease continues to spread until the entire tree must be chopped down. In this metaphor, the olive tree is compared to modernity and the systems in our society that are meant to serve the people, us.
So what do we do with the current complexities surrounding our world? Battiste (2009) explains that we are in trouble now because we are between the old and outdated story of the world and the new but unknown story that is emerging. Little by little, the Eurocentric and colonial understandings of the world is becoming discarded by its ideals becoming decentered with each and every change. As a scholar-practitioner in the field of education, I feel such change taking place and see certain portions of the field embracing such change, while other portions cling onto the remnants of what used to be.
Many educators empathize with Battiste's claim (2009) that public schooling erodes the learning spirit in the child, that Canadian educational institutions continue to be Eurocentric in language, discourse, numeracy, literacy, and many other forms of knowledge. I see this as a tweaked form of the historical Indian Residential Schools, where now things are more nuanced and covert; but the results are the same - the Indigenous and ancestral languages and knowledges of various minority groups are weakened in Canadian children, while the dominance of English and Eurocentric norms persist due to the education system.
Battiste (2009) offers that to move forward from all of this is to sensitize educators to the existing Eurocentric consciousness, which would prompt unlearning of such colonial myths like meritocracy. Then, we must relearn from our place and homeland and the knowledge derived from nature. But the current realities of many educators do not easily offer paths toward such remedies. As an educator of racialized students myself, I wrestle with the ethics of my role as an agent of the educational institution. Is it right for me to lean into the cultures of my students and reinforce their ancestral languages and knowledges in my classroom, when I know that the colonial world outside considers them to be less than and inferior?
In contrast, is it right for me to train my students to become experts in the colonial systems because it will help them thrive in the outside world, but by doing so it costs their ancestral connections? Battiste (2009) offers the concept of "two-eyed seeing" as a way for both sentiments to coexist, where Indigenous knowledge is normalized in the curriculum simultaneously with the key Western knowledges being maintained. As an immigrant myself with a duality in identity and language, I have considered this a form of multiple fluencies; the ability for one individual to be fluent in more than one language, knowledge systems, and cultural norms.
Perhaps this is what the notion of multiculturalism refers to, even though societally, interculturalism would better serve our country as it builds bridges between cultures rather than keeping them in segregated tiles on the mosaic. Regardless, I still wonder if this potential solution of two-eyed seeing is truly the way, since Furman cautions that the notion of a heroic leader with a heroic vision in a community is not democratic and is a flawed assumption. If I were to engaging in my practice with two-eyed seeing as my agenda, I could still be causing harms unknowingly. This is where consultation and deep democracy is needed.
In conclusion, my current thoughts around achieving true social justice in education means that we must shift from heroic individualism to community-centered practices. By embracing diverse perspectives and fostering deep democracy, educators can challenge inequitable systems and create truly transformative environments.
References
Battiste, M. (2009). Nourishing the Learning Spirit: Living our way to new thinking. Canadian Educational Association, 50(1), 14-18.
Furman, G. C. (2004). The ethic of community. Journal of Educational Administration, 42(2), 215-235. doi:https://doi.org/10.1108/09578230410525612
Heifetz, R.A, Grashow, A., & Linsky, M. (2009). The practice of adaptive leadership: tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. Harvard Business Press. Chapter 2
Machado de Oliveira, V. (2020). Mapping horizons of possibility. In Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity's wrongs and the implications for social activism, pp. 87-104.