ABSTRACT
Rawls’ seminal A Theory of Justice outlines a perspective on social liberalism. Its positioning of justice as fairness, at the same time as placing limits on the extent of economic redistribution within society, is considered. This chapter explores Rawls’ ideas and their implications for difference in society more widely, and thus foregrounds the relevance of currently underexplored debates on political values for inclusion. The complexity of ideas from liberal, communitarian and (neo)conservative perspectives are then addressed, with a focus on identifying value tensions, particularly between justice as desert and/or effort and equality of outcome. The history of liberal thinking as applied to education, and its critics, is traced out, followed by an exploration of Berlin’s seminal contributions on positive versus negative liberty and value pluralism and value incommensurability. Implications for current sites of tensions in education and inclusion, with a particular focus on resource limitations, are initially flagged.
