ABSTRACT
Chapter 14 examines how principals and teachers can enact a whole school approach to social justice education (SJE) through critical engagement with the efforts of one school, Rushgreen Educate Together National School (RETNS). Empirical data is analysed using the social justice concepts of relationality, participation and distribution, and additional concepts drawn from the theories of Critical Multiculturalism and Transformative Leadership Theory. One of the most consistent critiques across the literature of these critical theories is their inaccessibility to real teachers in real classroom contexts. Responding to this critique, the chapter presents a case study of RETNS as a model of critical theory in action. Recognising that schools are context specific with each presenting its own particular set of opportunities and challenges, this chapter does not seek to provide an SJE blueprint for schools. Rather, drawing critically on observed practice, it offers a framework of social justice promoting structures, processes and practices which can be mediated and adapted by schools to suit their specific contexts.
