The ‘grammar’ of justice: how do governing boards advance social justice for racially minoritised learners?

Education systems globally are increasingly tasked with undertaking their work in ways which advance social justice, making it important to engage empirically with how social justice imperatives are enacted within educational institutions. This paper focuses on UK further education colleges, which have long been positioned as having a social justice mission. It contributes to understandings of what and how social justice work gets recognised and done by drawing race and ethnicity out from the bundle of characteristics protected under equality law, and analysing how college governing boards work to advance social justice for racially minoritised learners. Drawing on a UK-wide study of college governing, and Fraser’s theorisation of social justice, we explicate four rituals through which social justice work proceeds in governing practices relating to racially minoritised learners. We argue that the combination of these rituals forms a recognisable ‘grammar’ of justice rendering both affirmative and transformative remedies for injustice unlikely.