Researching Teachers' Social Justice Dispositions Through Pedagogic Activity

• In Event: Exploring Dispositions in Lives of Teachers

Abstract

This theoretical paper introduces a new analytical category—social justice dispositions—to advance understandings of how educational advantage and disadvantage are enacted through teacher practice. Informed by the social theory of Bourdieu, social justice dispositions are the tendencies and leanings that provide un-thought guidance for socially just practice: a reading of disposition that departs from much of the existing professional teaching literature, but one that helps reconcile the dissonance often observed between what teachers claim (beliefs) and do (practice). Blended with cultural historic activity theory, we consider the relationship between teacher disposition, contexts, and practice, to identify possibilities for new forms of more socially just practice as it relates to teachers’ pedagogic work in differently advantaged settings.

Authors

• Trevor Gale, University of Glasgow

• Russell Cross, The University of Melbourne

• Carmen Mills, The University of Queensland