Educational Inequality and Social Justice: Challenges for Career Guidance

Abstract

The chapter provides a multiperspective approach to educational careers and describes the potential role that professional guidance can play to reduce social inequalities in educational attainment. In the first section I discuss the theoretical understanding of equal educational opportunities as a central element in social justice, essentially based on the conceptual propositions in Roemer's Equality of opportunity (Cambridge, MA, 1998). Different conceptions of equal opportunities derive from the (a) conditions and factors one considers to be legitimate determinants of unequal results and (b) those one rejects. More concretely, differences in outcomes are often accepted as legitimate when resulting from different effort, but are judged as non-legitimate when resulting from circumstances beyond the control of individuals. I explain how different normative views of equal opportunity and social justice differ according to how one conceives effort and circumstances.