Not “Just” Enough: White Teachers and Neoliberal “Social Justice” in a New York City School

• In Event: Critiquing Neoliberalism and Its Impact on Schooling

Abstract

The theme of this conference, “to know is not enough” implies that teachers and scholars have a duty not only to research but also to teach and to engage critical praxis in the interest of social justice. Yet social justice in education is a contested term, especially in an era of increasingly private or market-based reforms in urban education. In this paper, I 1) explore and synthesize key definitions of social justice in educational theory and research, and 2) contrast these scholarly definitions with those demonstrated by four white female teachers in a Brooklyn public high school that is increasingly influenced by the private sector. Data was gathered during two years of ethnographic teacher-research.

Author

• Amy E. Brown, University of Pennsylvania