This article investigates the social justice dispositions of teachers and principals in secondary schools as inferred from their metaphoric expressions. Drawing on a Bourdieuian account of disposition, our focus is the use of metaphor as a methodological tool to identify and reveal these otherwise latent forces within our data. Our analysis shows…

This article advances current conceptions of teacher activism through an exploration of the social justice dispositions of teachers in advantaged and disadvantaged contexts of schooling. We interrogate the practices of teachers in a government school, with a high proportion of refugee students and students from low socio-economic backgrounds, in a…

Teacher educators across the world face a daunting task: preparing predominantly White, middle class, pre-service teachers to be effective educators of diverse students. With predispositions arguably more powerful socialising influences than pre-service education (Lortie, 1975), selective recruitment has been advocated: "picking the right…

Drawing on the voices of students, parents and teachers from a secondary school located in a regional area of Australia in a township characterised by its high welfare dependency and Indigenous population, this article explores the tensions between how marginalised students see themselves and how they are seen by their peers, teachers and fellow…

Although facilitating community participation in disadvantaged schools can be difficult, this article argues that, given the structuring of schooling in contemporary western democracies, it is even more difficult than we might imagine. Drawing on Bourdieu, we attempt to elucidate the complex relations between schooling and socio-cultural contexts…