{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01978643216080402, 'fraction_numerical': 0.00628140703517588, 'mean_word_length': 5.172480620155039, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Social justice and fairness in primary education: the case for a more ecological view

There has been much talk in recent years about ‘social justice’ (or ‘fairness’ to use a simpler term) in education in recent years. A series of recent reports funded by Save the Children, an independent organisation that works in 120 countries, has shown the challenges that are faced in primary education internationally and in the UK more specifically. Firstly, a study published under the title Thrive at Five (Save the Children 2012) revealed that children from deprived backgrounds are more likely to do significantly worse than other children across a wide range of key developmental indicators including physical well-being, social skills, emotional health, cognitive ability, and communication skills. The long-term consequences of this developmental gap are a lack of future opportunities for children who grow up in poverty with restricted life chances in terms of jobs, health and, one presumes, happiness. The report argues very strongly for additional support in the early years for children living in poverty in order that these problems can be ameliorated or overcome. The ways to address these problems were discussed in a second report entitled Developing Children’s Zones for England (2013a). The report’s authors are a strong team from the University of Manchester in the UK, which has developed a powerful record for research on education in challenging circumstances. They argue that for generations England has struggled with how to help the most disadvantaged children in the poorest places and that despite the undoubted gains that have been made in some areas, the life chances of many children continue to be blighted by repeated failures to provide interventions that are capable of making a real difference in their lives. For this reason the report suggests that further innovative responses to address poor outcomes in disadvantaged areas are needed. Furthermore they point out that the changing landscape of service provision in recent years should encourage action at a local level rather than relying on huge and often cumbersome national initiatives which may lack the finesse and targeted action that is needed to address very specific local needs. The authors draw on a wide range of evidence about the mechanisms through which social disadvantage, and the distinctive dynamics of particular places, are linked to poor outcomes. In doing so, the report reviews the literature on local or zone approaches in the USA and the UK and concludes that there are good reasons to believe that English children’s zones could make a significant impact on outcomes that are likely to be greater than those that could be achieved through uncoordinated single-issue interventions. Much of this work draws on the influential model developed by Bronfenbrenner (1979) which suggests that rather than focusing on single ‘presenting problems’, we should consider an ‘ecological systems theory’ that sees the child as interacting with a series of ‘systems’, which together form an ‘ecology’ that shapes outcomes (Save the Children 2013a, 2). These ‘systems’ include the family, the