What would a socially just education system look like?

A socially just education system seems further away than ever, as we write. The financial crisis in Europe continues, with austerity measures meaning significant cuts to public services (including Education). In spite of the banking crisis of 2008, the austerity climate in many countries in the Global North means government attachment to neoliberal market solutions to public service challenges has not abated; rather, governments are more reliant than ever on private sector involvement. Education systems in our locations of Australia and England continue to be subjected to processes of audit and competition, with the aim of driving up educational standards via the facilitation of consumer 'choice' (Lingard 2010). However, as has been widely documented, such agendas further benefit those already advantaged via greater financial and social capitals, which shape the ability to choose (Gewirtz, Ball, and Bowe 1995; Ball, Bowe, and Gewirtz 1996). In both countries, 'race', gender and social class continue to impact on educational outcomes. Family background is still the strongest predictor of educational achievement levels. As politicians angst about social inequality (and in the English case, ever declining rates of social mobility which belie the facade of meritocracy), their commitment to market 'solutions' in education mean that such gaps are likely to widen, not shrink. However, periods of challenge are often fruitful for ingenuity and radicalism, so perhaps there may be opportunities in this challenging moment. Certainly, ingenuity is needed. We were reminded of this when reading the quote by the Argentinean documentary film maker in Gandin and Apple's paper in this issue about utopian thinking:

True utopia emerges when there are no ways to resolve the situation within the coordinates of the possible and, out of the pure urge to survive, you have to invent a new space. Utopia is not a free imagination; utopia is a matter of innermost urgency; you are forced to imagine something else as the only way out.