Abstract
The fifth edition of the book, Education, Equality and Human Rights: Issues of Gender, ‘Race’, Sexuality, Disability and Social Class, is a valuable and interesting collection of papers on the topic of human rights, social inequalities and education in the UK. The book reflects on policy, legislation and practice in relation to social justice and inequality issues with socio-political, economic and cultural lenses, chronologically from the 19th and 20th centuries up to the most recent developments (including the burning issues of Covid-19 and Brexit). The volume is edited by Mike Cole, with contribution from a group of education experts and academic researchers from different British higher education institutions. The combination of work from expert authors contributes to achieving the book’s purpose, which is mainly about providing a better understanding of human rights and social justice issues in relation to education.
The book contains 10 interesting, informative and introductory chapters organized based on the key themes of Gender, ‘Race’, Sexuality, Disability and Social Class, as set out in the book title. Each theme is then discussed in two chapters. The first chapter of each pair enfolds the sociohistorical overview of the relevant equality issue within the theme, and the second chapter relates it to education. Similarly, the introduction of each chapter serves to clarify terminology specific to its topic and presents a chronological and sociohistorical overview of issues related to equality and education in the English context. While the book is organized on a balanced thematic approach, each chapter can stand as a self-contained paper, demonstrating the flexibility for wider audience access.
The introduction section, ‘Human Rights, Equality and Education’ by Mike Cole, is an impressive and helpful guide to the book. In this section, Cole clarifies the key discussion points of the book, following background on human rights and relevant policy and legislation in the UK. For instance, Cole states that all the concerned equality issues discussed in this book are ‘social constructs’, believing that human beings are socialized into accepting the norms, values and customs of social systems (p. xxxi). Consequently, Cole refuses the idea of social equality characteristics being natural. Next, Cole explains the key terms related to protected characteristics (e.g., disability, age, gender assignment, marriage and civil partnership, religion and beliefs, ‘race’ and nationality) to inform the reader what these terms mean throughout the book. Such definitions construct a leading framework for readers of the text to be aware of since individuals interested in human rights, social justice and education may have varying perspectives about the terms and concepts based on their interests or affiliation with an institutional entity or technical/academic discipline.
Among the strengths of this edition is the solid signposting within most themes, which connects each pair with backing from education literature. Throughout the major themes, the authors discuss what social inequalities exist, how policies, legislation and real-world practices contribute to challenging and addressing them, and eventually, how they pertain to education. For instance, in the first chapter of the book ‘Women and Equality in the UK: The Struggle for Freedom and Justice for All’, Jane Martin is quite scathing in their analysis and raises significant concerns about several social inequality issues affecting women in the UK since 19th century and after the first Women’s Liberation Movement in the 1970s. Martin posits that education is a powerful tool that enables women to ascend to high positions in prestigious offices, but material inequalities persist and reinforce unjust outcomes. This means that in an intersection culture, white and middle-class women achieve their highest potential through education, whereas the competitive market still demands cheap labour—most of whom are black and women from low-income backgrounds. Martin’s next chapter titled ‘Gender, Education and Social Change’ continues to analyse how gender inequality in education has been situated within UK policies and practices, linking past histories on gender and education with contemporary debates regarding gender equality and social change in and through education.
While this volume offers a set of valid introductory papers with a sociohistorical review of social change and developments concerning human rights, social justice, gender equality and education, it fails to establish a sufficient account of interlinkage between gender parity and gender equality issues. In other words, most of the authors in this collection claim tangible achievements and chronological progress around gender equality and women’s rights in the UK’s recent history, yet with two female prime ministers, an outstanding presence of women, particularly in leading positions in higher education institutions and schools; still, women’s representation is perceived to be relatively low, and gender equality remains a valid concern. Such an analysis gap reduces the relevance of this book in a broader context, particularly in developing countries where concerns around gender equality are considerably high (Jayachandran, 2015). In most developing countries, the main struggle for women is to achieve basic human rights. Therefore, gender parity in various aspects of social life is regarded as one of the routes to social justice in developing contexts, such as Northern Africa, India and the Middle East (Jayachandran, 2015).
Given the current state of human rights, social equality issues and education in the UK, this book is an insightful resource that is timely and accessible for practitioners in education, professionals and postgraduate students of social science and international development. This book can also be a useful and informative guide to educational entities/education providers who may wish to consider equality, gender and social inclusion in their educational interventions.