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Psychology Research
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Analysis of the Principles of Education Justice in Modern Society
Wei ZHANG, Shijie YANG
Elementary Educational College of Capital Normal University, Beijing, P.R.China
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Education justice,
Education rights,
Education opportunities,
Education resources
Justice is one of the important moralities in Ethics. Education justice is the extension and
reflection of justice in the realm of education. Borrowed from the methods the Ethics use to
research justice principle, the principle of education justice in modern society, based on the
basic concept of equality, freedom, social cooperation, the practical factors such as
commercialization and the differences of education objectives and of individual educatees
in modern society, includes right to education assurance principle, education opportunity
equality principle during compulsory education stage, education resources distribution as
per capability at post-compulsory education stage and compensation principle to the
disadvantaged. Efforts should be made to associate all the principles of education justice
systematically, so that all the principles can coordinate and work together.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
1 Introduction
Justice is the most important moral principle of social governance, while education justice is the extension and reflection of the social
justice in the realm of education. As education, in this practical world where injustice exists everywhere, provides opportunities to
fair play and move upwards, helps the poor improve their living conditions, decreases the injustice in the social system, it is
considered as “the greatest measure” to achieve justice in modern society. Thus, education justice has become the primary goal of
education development and reform around the world. Recently, the education justice issue was also stressed in the “National
education reform and development of long-term planning programs” in China.
The author discovered, during her recent years of research, that different acknowledgement or even conflicts exist on a single
education phenomenon or education system. The conflicting seeks of justice has cornered some of the education reforms, which is
most importantly resulted from the absence of unanimous recognition to the education justice principle in present social status.
Therefore, the focal point in researching the education justice lies in defining the education justice principles in accordance with the
theoretical and practical factors in modern society, which also provides the theoretical basis for settling conflicted seeking of justice
and opens a door for the cornered education reforms.

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected]
English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
DOI: 10. 5503/J. PR. 2012.06.012
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2 The Standing Ground for the Education Justice Principles in Modern Society
Education justice, as a concept and principles, has its historical derivation, which shows unique content in particular time in history.
In modern society, the standing ground of the education justice principles is settled on theoretical basis and practical basis.
2.1 Theoretical basis
There are three basic justice theories in modern society; they are equality theory, freedom theory and social cooperation theory,
which are the theoretical foundations of the education justice principles in contemporary world. Among the three, equality theory is
the primary theoretical basis for education justice because it confirms the basic contribution and dignity of every individual person.
The fact that the society, as a whole, can exist and exist in dignity has everything to do with the contribution and dignity of every
individual person. “The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals.” [1] Therefore, the
basic contribution of each and every individual is indispensible and equal when it comes to the concept of society establishment.
Freedom and equality are closely related, they are also different in that equality pays attention to the confirmation and protection to
individual’s basic attributions, while freedom lays emphasis on the respect and protection on individual differences. The specific
requirements of the freedom theory to the content of education justice principles are to respect the fact that individuals ar e different
in talent and ability, to respect the educatees’ choice of development and to provide target-oriented education in accordance to
individual’s ability. In the mean time, attention has to be paid on the side effect that extreme freedom could lead to, so that distinct
differences among individuals shouldn’t be promoted. Individual cannot survive by oneself, let alone to develop. Separated from the
human society, existence of a being is impossible. Therefore, individuals have to associate and cooperate together to realize one’s
self-worth. Social cooperation theory is also important to education justice principles in that, it compensates the justice principles of
the area that is founded on freedom and equality that can’t reach, reflecting the reasonable spirit of the integrated society.
2.2 Practical basis
Equality, freedom and social cooperation are the theoretical basis for the education justice. The reason why they are the basic theories
commonly shared among the average people in modern society is because of the immense influence of the power of market economy
brings forward. “All social and political relations, all religious and legal systems, all the theoretical outlooks which emerge in history
can only be understood if the material conditions of life of the corresponding epoch have been understood and the former are derived
from these material conditions.” [2]
In a certain sense, market economy is the breeding ground for equality and freedom theories. Under the condition of limited
resources, it is a very critical issue for a society on how it can reasonably distribute the resources, which is necessary for the
economic activities. The market pricing system basically reflects the supply-demand relationship. In the mean time, profit
maximization in a market economy urges the manufacture to minimize the cost of production by all means so that the products are
more competitive in the market. As a result, the competition, rational selection, equal opportunity and fairly treatment are the
important principles in a society with market economy. Intensive sense of competition and of rational selection will strengthen and
intensify the individual’s freedom theory, while equal opportunity ad fairly treatment requirement will have the equal theory shared
among all the social members. Effective cooperation among Individuals is indispensible within the scope of the market economy. “A
market economy is an elaborate mechanism for coordinating people, activities, and businesses through a system of prices and
markets. It is a communication device for pooling the knowledge and actions of billions of diverse individuals.”[3] Individual, being
in such an elaborate “economic mechanism”, can only achieve their economic objectives with high social collaboration. And as the
social collaboration being used pervasively, it will then be gradually recognized and acknowledged by social members, so that the
social cooperation theory will be gradually enriched and become an important basic theory on the public level.
3 The Basic Content of the Education Justice Principles in Modern Society
According to above stated equality, freedom, social cooperation theories, practical factors such as commercialization and education
objectives, differences between educatees, the content of education justice principles in modern sense should include the following
aspects:
3.1 Assurance principle of the right to education
Right to education is the right to receive education. Rights can be defined as basic rights and non-basic rights. Basic rights are the
rights to fulfill those basic, minimum, lowest requirements as a human being. Non-basic rights are the rights to fulfill people’s higher
level requirements. Basic rights mainly include right to survive, right to vote, right to education and right to develop. Being a person,
as long as he is one of the social members, deserves to be protected for his basic survival and develop rights regardless his hierarchy,
his social status, his intelligence and his contribution to the society. Non-basic rights refer to higher level rights during people’s
survival and development, include right to acquire wealth, right to seek officialdom, right to receive higher education and right to
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become famous. Non-basic rights are the rights given differently to different people according to his intelligence and contribution to
the society.
Thus, we can see that the right to education is the basic right to every social member. Only when the right to education is effectively
protected can the individuals’ basic contribution of social establishment and the confirmation of the attribution dignity be reflected on
the bottom line, can the fundamental purpose of education development which the based basic theory also be realized out of its nature
by people, can the essential conditions be setup for the healthy development of the education most effectively.
As to developing country, the complete establishment of the educatees’ right to education in the whole society needs to go through a
process; we can’t use the standard from developed countries to measure it in general. In any case, the right to education is the right
for all the children in developing countries and its importance is beyond that of developed countries.
3.2 Ex-ante principle which provides equal education opportunity
Education opportunity refers to the educatees’ development possibilities, it includes all the conditions of an educate person joining in
an educational institution and participating educational activities. Opportunity is a resource to all educatees, education opportunity
equality as a principle, which should be followed when dealing with how to share the education opportunity as a resource. It refers to
the fact that equal treatment to equal issues, and different treatment to specific cases. Education opportunity affects distribution status
directly; different education opportunity will result in different development possibilities for the educatees in the future, so in the
distribution sense, equal education opportunity principle is a principle that should be settled beforehand. The content of education
opportunity equality is as follows:
Firstly, equality of the starting point for education opportunity. This is to say, educatees who have basically the same potential should
have basically the same starting point before they start to compete for the non-basic right to education, so that they have the same
chances of development. However, due to social casual factors such as hierarchy, financial conditions, educatees don’t have the same
starting point before going into the education institutes. This requires the government intervention to promote education industry
especially the balanced development of the elementary education. This is the most effective way to “equally develop individuals’
potential”. [4]
Secondly, equality on the process is to realize the education opportunity. The process of realizing opportunity has a significant
meaning towards whether the principle of education opportunity equality could be realized or not at last. The process to realize the
education opportunity must rule out all the distraction from abnormal factors. All the educatees competing to receive higher level
education should be evaluated with the same standard instead of being in favour of certain people and being against others with any
excuses, education opportunity should be open equally to everybody. What’s more, consideration should be taken whether the
educatees reach the standard of acquiring the non-basic right to education, this requires the government to assure that every educatee
have the measure, resource and ability to use these opportunities, so that the realization of education opportunity equality principle is
totally protected.
Thirdly, recognize and respect the social members’ “natural” differences on development potential, and the resulting “differences” on
possession of the education opportunity. People are different by nature, which were shown on intelligence, fitness, health, character
and other aspects. Those “natural” differences will result in different development potential and different ability to grasp education
opportunities. Although, the overall influence of the “natural” differences is less than the influence from social environment to an
individual, it is an inevitable influence and reasonable after all. So, recognition and respect should be paid to the different education
opportunities and different development potential among social members caused by those normal and reasonable “natural”
differences.
3.3 Ex-post principle for distributing education resources as per capability after compulsory education
Ex-post principle is the way how to distribute the present education resources, brought up after the education resources are for med.
As a result, it is called ex-post principle for education justice. In compulsory education stage, government will need to make sure that
all the children receive qualified education, make sure that everyone has the “basic education”, so the children will not be divided by
different standard. Developing education, education after compulsory education, is to fulfill the personal needs to develop and the
social needs for different level of talent. For the time being, when government still cannot assure that all the post education
opportunities are equal, the only way to distribute higher level education reasonably is to let the ones who work harder to have the
opportunities.
How to distribute the resources of the post compulsory education, what kind of individual differences will result in the difference in
receiving higher education, that is a question. Equality theory, freedom theory and social cooperation theory shall make sure that the
distribution of the education resources are according to educatees’ anticipated contribution, or so called the principle of ability
standard, not the money standard or hierarchy standard. Distribution as per ability and talent can join the educates’ ability and interest
together. Reality also shows that it will energize the students to study harder and also energize the educational activities. This
distributing principle is totally adapted to this modern society and the market economy too.
To make ability the principle of distributing education resources, we have to make sure the equality of identifying ability. How to
ensure the ability standard is justified? First, we should ensure the educational evaluation standard is reasonable. Education
evaluation is based on certain evaluation standard; different standard will result in different outcome. What kind of evaluation
standard is impartial and reasonable? The author believes that diversity is the trend of the modern educational evaluation standard
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instead of the standard confined to certain areas. For instance, it is one-sided to pursue excellence through strict academic training to
reach outstanding intelligence. Excellent intelligent is one of the most important evaluation standards in education, but it is not the
only one. A high quality person should have not only the excellent intelligence, but also have good characters such as social
responsibility, sympathy, care, tolerance, etc; not only have sense, but also have sensibility, imagination; not only have multi-aspect
interest, but also know how to study, and keep the willingness of study for a life time; not only devote to science, but also attach to
culture; not only want to explore, but also become initiative and being aufheben. The author believes that the above stated characters
formed the evaluation standard that the modern education should pursue. Second, we should ensure the educational evaluation
measure we use is justified. Different measures result in different outcomes. For instance, to an exam that lay emphasis on students’
memories, students will only need to recite and remember whatever written in the book to achieve a good score, it is not fair then to
the students who have imagination, initiatives. According to education justice requirement, educational evaluation measures should
be in favour of evaluating students’ comprehensive qualities, in favour of testing students’ characters’ development.
After the compulsory education, money can be applied to influence the distribution of the education resource. Different level and
types of education face different people, cost share principle should be applied as “the benefited should pay”, or “the more one
benefits, the more one pays”. But the money role should only be based on the ability principle, that is to say the ability is the primary
principle and the money plays the second. If ability can’t be deems as the primary requisition to distribute education resources, then
the students’ quality cannot be ensured, which also affects the whole nation’s quality; if the money plays the primary role in
distributing the education recourses, then education will become minority’s hereditary domain, which is obviously unfair. The
following states the situation when the ability and money influence education opportunities at the same time: firstly, ability first,
money second. For instance, situations like special professional or institutes which train the urgent needed people, special jobs, or
work with tough conditions and in remote areas should pay attention to abilities, the tuition should be covered by the govern ment.
Secondly, under the precondition of the ability focus, increase education tuition properly, which means, except for the above stated
situations, public schools should setup uniform ability standard for admission, at the same time, students should pay certain amount
of tuition, tuition should be variable as per different specialties. And the government should setup a complete the system of
scholarship, bursary and loan to make sure those poor students can finish their schooling too. Thirdly, under the precondition the
ability meets certain standard, money plays the role. This situation only exists in the private schools in the post compulsory education
to fulfill different requirement from different levels. The private schools should also setup certain standard for abilities to ensure the
education quality, but not necessarily as per government’s uniform standard.
3.4 Compensation principle to the disadvantaged
John Rawls believes that “social and economic inequalities, for example inequalities of wealth and authority, are just only if they
result in compensating benefits for everyone, and in particular for the least advantaged members of society”. Compensation principle
is based on this. The main content of compensation principle is to adjust and compensate the education to the disadvantaged during
the education development based on education’s overall interest, so that the disadvantaged will benefit from the education, resulting
in the elevation of the education quality. The disadvantaged in the education domain refers to students from poor families, physically
or mentally challenged students, national minority students whom are in a disadvantaged position to the mainstream culture, Chinese
characteristics HuKou system related children of floating population and anti-society students such as criminal students.
The compensation principle has important meanings, it can compensate the disadvantaged on their ability and knowledge deficiency,
minimize the education opportunity to the advantaged, relieve the social conflicts resulted from this, elevate the overall education
level.
There are differences between the compensation principle and the assurance principle in education justice. Assurance principle is
based on protecting the educatees’ basic rights, while the compensation principle pays attention to maximize the development of the
disadvantaged. For instance, they both pay attention to education, assurance principle assures compulsory education, while
compensation principle performs education to the disadvantaged by means of providing bursary, scholarship and advantaged policies.
4 Conclusion
From the analysis above, every principle in education justice reflects a different and indispensible aspect in education justice.
Assurance principle is the bottom line to protect every educatee’s basic right to education, to ensure the attributed dignity is protected
and individual’s social establishment contribution is acknowledged; ex-ante principle is to provide the education opportunities as
equal as possible to the educatees, so that the educatees’ potential can be fully explored and the education activities can be energized;
ex-post principle is to reflect every educatee’s ability differences reasonably from direct distribution level, to ensure every educatee’s
education benefit; compensation principle is to adjust distribution status of education benefit in certain area, to ensure the social
harmony and elevate the overall education level. Obviously, only when all the principles in education justice associate systematically
can the justice theory is reflected comprehensively, hence, the justice theory influences education from all aspects.
In the practical world, education justice principle and practice usually have apparent discrepancies. Comprehensive education justice
is usually an ideal assumption, cannot be realized completely. Because the complete realization of the education justice principle
depends on sufficient education resources to distribute to and compensate the educatees, and that is a problem for all the societies in
all times. What’s more, country, as a social community, pays attention to different problems during different periods, so the education
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justice principles need to be realized gradually. To clarify the education justice principle and practice discrepancies can help us
understand education justice from a scientific point of view. First, we should not use an ideal assumption to look at education justice
in a practical world; second, we also need to realize the importance of education justice. Since education justice principles and
practice have discrepancies, society’s responsibility is to realize education justice principles via possible measures effectively and
step by step. In a certain sense, education justice level in a real world has more meaning in the real justice sense to all the social
members.
References
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Paul A. Samuelson, Economics, China Development Press, 1992: 70 (in Chinese)
The Theory of Democracy Revisited, Giovani Sartori, Oriental Publishing House, 1993:50 (in Chinese)
A Theory of Justice, John Rawls, China Social Sciences Publishing House, 1998: 12 (in Chinese)
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