MOBILITY JUSTICE SYMPOSIUM 2022

University of Wollongong, Australia1

13-14 June 2022

From mobility justice to educational justice: contributions of the mobilities approach to

the analysis of socio-educational inequality processes

Tapia, Silvia Alejandra

CONICET / Universidad de Buenos Aires
stapia@sociales.uba.ar

Abstract
New discussions about processes of inequality in educative experiences have been
approached from the notion of educational justice. This perspective seeks to recognise
the present conditions of educational processes, but also to project a desired image for
the future.
Several scientific articles carried out in the Latin American context during the last ten
years that have pointed out differentiated educational trajectories, especially linked to:
a) mobilities associated with migratory and residential displacements; b) urban
movements to access educational establishments; and c) practices of educational
internationalisation.
Following the contributions of the new mobility paradigm, and through those studies, I
explore the links between socio-educational inequalities and mobilities associated with
the arrival and transit through secondary schools in Latin American countries,
particularly in Argentina. I understand that the dialogue between the contributions of
educational justice and mobility justice approaches can enrich and mobilise both
perspectives for the analysis of educational experiences.

Introduction
During the last decades, while in many Latin American countries, previously excluded
sectors increased their access to social rights and services, social inequality persisted,

1
Organized by Geographical Society of New South Wales (GSNSW), the Australian Mobilities Research
Network (AusMob), and the Australian Centre for Culture, Environment, Society and Space (ACCESS).
https://www.ausmob.com.au/mobility-justice-symposium-2022

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now mainly associated with the fragmentation of the quality and experience of those
rights.
Education is a paradigmatic case of this fragmentation: Greater access to higher levels
of schooling among disadvantaged youth went hand in hand with a growing
segmentation and stratification of the educational system—
In Argentina, different regulations had an effect to massify the access. That is the case
of mandatory secondary education – a medium level in Argentinian system, introduce
by a new Law in 2006. These meant that young people who were historically excluded
from this level now have access to secondary school.
The Law establishes that "education and knowledge are a public good and a personal
and social right guaranteed by the State with the guarantee of equality.
However, in Argentina prevails more educational access and inclusion, along with a
growing segmentation and segregation. In that scenario. The school system is organised
into segments according to the social sectors they receive, fulfilling a function of "social
distribution" that legitimise differences that correspond to the origins of each group.
These segments produce different kinds of education - for example private and public
schools; circuits of educational institutions with dissimilar characteristics based on the
kind of buildings, the human and material resources, access to transport and the
environmental conditions that surround them, among others.

Regarding this context, for this presentation I proposed to reflect on these questions:
1. What kind of connections exist between spatial mobilities and inequality and
educational (in)justices?
2. How have those connections been studied by social sciences in Argentina? What
kind of mobilities are investigated in relation to such processes?
3. What are the implications of addressing educational (in)justices and the
conceptualizations on mobility justice?

Aims
For this presentation the aim is to Explore the connections between socio-educational
inequalities and mobilities associated with the access and the experiences in secondary
schools in Latin America, particularly Argentina, through the lens of educational and
mobility justice approaches.
To do that I conducted a literature review through a selection of studies. The criteria I
used to select the data was: articles based on empirical research on trajectories and
experiences of young students at secondary schools and studies produced in the
Argentinian context during the last ten years. The search was made in Scopus, Google
Scholar and Redalyc.

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Theoretical framework
As a starting point to think on the connections of mobilities and education, I consider
the contributions of the mobility justice approach proposed by Mimi Sheller (2018).
I understand, along with her, the mobility justice conceptualizations as a political and
ethical issue and a manner to think about different ways of transitioning toward more
just mobilities.
In this regard, I find important to observe uneven levels of “motility” as a different
capability for mobility and the control over the mobility of Others that different social
groups have, but also the differential “accessibility” to various kinds of spaces and social
goods that results of racial, gendered, classed, sexed, and other social conditions, that
are also productive of those hierarchical systems of differentiation
So, for the analysis of uneven mobilities in the literature review I considered the uneven
qualities of experience, infrastructure, subjects of mobility but also events and
temporalities that may produce inequalities in educational trajectories and experiences
On the other hand, I consider the contributions of the educational justice
conceptualizations in Latin America, particular Aguilar Nery’s work.
the concept of equity that emerged during the 1990’s, associated with the idea of
compensation of social inequalities based on a minimum material distribution and an
individualistic approach, was criticized. It was highlighted the limits of the interventions
that didn’t improve the situations of vulnerable sectors.
In contrast the concept of educational justice is proposed as a device to critically
describe the distribution in schooling, and at the same time, establishes a horizon of
expectations to build a just society. In this proposal, following the framework of Nancy
Fraser and Axel Honnet, it is argued that educational policy has focused mainly on
redistribution, to compensate for the material inequalities that are manifested at
school, in detriment of recognition, which has not been sufficiently explored. So, in
addition to observe the injustices as inequalities in the dimensions of redistribution of
material resources, it is noted the relevance of symbolic resources (such as knowledge
and learning) with the recognition of different identities and contexts as starting points
(Aguilar, 2017).

Results
From the literature review I found three main types of experiences that connect
mobilities and school experiences

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Migration
Studies agree that, according to local regulations, migrants can access public and private
schools, at any level, regardless of their legal status. Argentina guarantees migrants
access to free public education at all educational levels. However, not all immigrants
have the same possibilities to remain and advance within the system. Although the laws
have acquired a human rights-based approach, discriminatory practices against people
from Latin American countries are still present.
This occurs within the context of a society that continues to think of itself as white and
European and in which immigrants from Latin American countries, especially from
Bolivia, Paraguay, and Peru, are seen as inferior racial groups.
The spatial distribution of immigrant students in Buenos Aires shows that especially
those migrants tend to be concentrated in the southern part of the city, where poverty
rates are highest. These districts also have the highest dropout and repetition rates and
the lowest academic performance, for example migrants of those countries have lower
average scores than native students in both language and mathematics exams.
Research indicate that young migrants are accepted into the education system in an
environment of discriminatory situations. To explain this, it is used the category of
Subordinate Inclusion, i.e., schools do not prevent formal access for young migrants, but
their educational trajectories and other multiple formative experiences are ignored,
they tend to be enrolled in grades lower than those to which they would be entitled,
low expectations of their school performance are generated. They also have difficulties
in completing long educational trajectories, their traditions and knowledge are silenced,
less prestigious school circuits are created, because of the requirement of integration
with the Argentinian nationality.
There is no evidence of the design of pedagogical or institutional mechanisms that
address the specific needs of immigrant students in secondary schools. Educational
policies and practices consider that it is the students' responsibility to "assimilate into
Argentinian culture".
Young migrants face greater obstacles than natives to remain in the education system
once they have completed primary school. During secondary school, because of their
ethno-racial and socio-economic status, they often feel discriminated against by their
peers as well as by their teachers.
They use strategies to stay in school: hiding or denying their origins, abandoning their
own language and certain customs, and often violent confrontation with their peers to
defend themselves, which leads to discontinuous school trajectories, with temporary or
permanent school dropouts.
In addition, it has begun to be observed the continuous mobility of family groups
throughout the life cycle of young people, with continuous returns and trips to other
countries, as well as permanent displacements throughout Argentina and changes of
schools. Through the notion of displacement, researchers begin to distinguish the

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multiple mobilities that are connected in youth trajectories that contrast with the
predictability and continuity established by the formal education system.

Urban mobilities
Second, connected to educational segmentation, the studies reviewed have started to
notice the connections with territorial and mobilities configurations.
One line of research addresses the existence of barriers that act as factors that prevent
or limit the mobility and displacement of the population and direct accessibility to
services. The proximity of the institutions does not define attendance at these schools.
The competition between establishments, the difficulties of accessibility due to the poor
functioning of public transport, or physical barriers such as highways or train tracks that
limit arrival on foot, as well as the differential assessment that families make regarding
"central" and "central" schools. peripheral” can limit access to schools in vulnerable
districts.
The place has concrete effects and reinforce existing educational inequalities: students
that cannot get to school, absenteeism, difficulties for filling teaching positions
In another approach, inequalities are studied in relation to the location of the actors and
from the possibilities of mobility, relationships, and daily practices in the city.
It is also relevant to this approach the production of both material borders, legal or
economic devices or symbolic mechanisms that regulate the flows of people and
produce inequalities. Such inequalities interact with educational ones on different
scales.
It is highlighted that the proximity and equality of educational opportunities do not
seem to be equivalent. The studies show that the proximity between the residential
location and the location of the educational establishments sometimes reinforces
educational inequalities or that it is necessary that these establishments have a vacancy
for that person.
Differentiations operate beyond the physical distance that exists between the
establishments and the territories, allowing us to think of the existence of "symbolic
distances", over and above the material distances, that separate the different
population groups from the different educational offers.
For example, the City of Buenos Aires, presents a pattern of segregation based on “a
strong contrast between the south and the north. The north and the geographical centre
of the city concentrate a large part of the upper and middle-high sectors, while the
lower-income population residing in urbanizations of informal origin (villas, settlements,
and transitory housing centres) are located in the south and southwest.
Observing the distribution of establishments in the city at the Initial and Primary Level,
the offer seems to have a relatively homogeneous distribution throughout the city.

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Although there is a concentration of private schools in the north and centre of the city.
Regarding the Secondary Level, the distribution is less homogeneous, with a marked
absence of establishments in the southern zone. Likewise, at this level, private schools
offer seems to exceed, in terms of number of establishments, the state offer.
Another way to approach the analysis of the relationship between supply and demand
in a territorial key is to analyse the average distance that people must travel to attend
an educational establishment according to their place of residence. This measure allows
us to approximate how the different districts and urban environments define
possibilities of access to the educational offer of state management. the Secondary Level
is the one with the longest distances and with the greatest variability. The access
situation is aggravated when the analysis by district is added to the analysis of the
distances considering the types of habitat or urban contexts. In this sense, we see that
the populations residing in the urbanizations of informal origin (villas, NHT settlements)
present the greatest distances to public establishments of all levels.

International education
In relation to segmentation in the educational system, other studies point out the
creation of elite circuits in very prestigious institutions that, at the same time, enable
access to the highest levels of the educational system and that have an impact on access
to international educational mobility
Studies shows that wealthier families make costly investments for their children to
access the best bilingual and bicultural educational institutions as strategies for
developing a disposition to internationalisation. Practices that increase their home-
grown international capital.
As for the institutions, private schools associated with middle and upper-middle sectors
develop trips as part of their curriculum: on the one hand, solidarity, and volunteering
trips, and on the other hand, academic and educational trips. The former, for aid and
service ethics. The latter prioritise relational and learning, especially oriented towards
countries in the global North.
The trips are a way of preserving and securing their positions of privilege, strengthening
previous positions: the trips are based on several previous socio-economic filters,
reinforcing the restrictions on diversity from the outset, anchored in school selection
criteria, sustained by high enrolment fees. This phenomenon has its counterpart in the
accumulation of advantages, as strategies developed by agents - and institutions - to
secure such positions that permeate other privileges, by enabling new connections and
experiences, which are capitalised both materially and symbolically.

Conclusions

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There is an important relationship between processes of mobility and segmentation of
the educational field.
When observing the experiences of educational injustice, conditions that refer to
injustices in mobility experiences such as discriminatory situations, limitations in access
to certain practices, lack of recognition of previous trajectories or forms of circulation
through urban space can be observed.
The dialogue between the contributions of educational justice and mobility justice
approaches can enrich and mobilise both perspectives for the analysis of educational
experiences. It is important to address the connections among different kinds of
mobilities and their consequences.

References
Aguilar, J. (2017). De la equidad a la justicia en la educación latinoamericana. In XIV Congreso
de Investigación Educativa.

Sheller, M. (2018). Theorising mobility justice. Tempo Social, 30, 17-34.