A volume in Issues in the Research, Theory, Policy, and Practice of
Urban Education Series Editors: Denise E. Armstrong, Brock University,
and Brenda J. McMahon, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte
This edited collection of chapters from invited scholars, explores
issues of social justice and micropolitics in educational institutions.
More specifically, it examines the ways in which social justice workers
navigate, or can navigate, (micro) political systems in their quest to
promote social justice. Issues of social justice and micropolitics are
particularly important in this day and age as standardizing regimes and
polarizing forces continue to erode the already perilous condition of
the traditionally disadvantaged. While social justice workers make it a
point to acknowledge the plight of the less fortunate, their
well-meaning attempts to take action are not always successful. This
requires that they acknowledge the realities of the micropolitical
environments in which they work, and to take action in these arenas if
they are to achieve their social justice goals. The title of the book,
Working (With/out) the System, draws attention to the ways in which
social justice workers/leaders (teachers, administrators, students,
community members) navigate educational institutions and the wider
social systems that are not always hospitable to changes that promote
social justice. This volume describes the prospects, possibilities and
actual practice of working with, working without, and working outside of
educational organizations to promote social justice. Among other topics,
the chapters probe: the manner in which social justice-minded leaders
navigate micropolitical environments the ways in which social justice
minded leaders promote and sustain social justice action within systemic
contexts the difficulties and successes that they exper
