View Point: A Socially Just English Language Curriculum

Abstract

In Australia we like to believe in the notion of a 'fair go', but how this is translated into the English language curriculum is dependant upon implicit assumptions about who should get what, why and how. In what follows I suggest that a 'fair go' approach to English language education in a democratic, multi-cultural and multi-literate nation in a postmodern era where the validity of school education is challenged by global flows of images,ideas, capital and people might be best achieved when premised upon a recognitive model of social justice.